


Playing Hero

by silvernon



Series: Earth 17 [1]
Category: ITZY (Band), Marvel Ultimate Universe, NCT (Band), SEVENTEEN (Band), Stray Kids (Band), Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon 2012)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Undeath, Plot, because friends to lovers dynamics amirite, by which i mean romance takes a backseat but when it actually happens it's very sweet, found family because i'm a sucker, vernon's last name is parker for full effect
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 45,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27415348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvernon/pseuds/silvernon
Summary: It’s been over a year since Vernon was bitten by the irradiated spider that turned him into the web-slinging superhero Spider-Man, but it seems like he still has a lot to learn about responsibility.When Nick Fury himself turns up at his school proposing to train him for a future among the Ultimates, Vernon is faced with a series of challenges—taking responsibility for an up-and-coming team of young superheroes, and juggling a job and a complicated relationship with his childhood best friend while he’s at it—not to mention dealing with the symbiotic biowar brewing right in the midst of it all…
Relationships: Chwe Hansol | Vernon & Hong Jisoo | Joshua, Chwe Hansol | Vernon & Liu Yang Yang (NCT) & Hwang Yeji (ITZY) & Lee Felix (Stray Kids), Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Original Female Character(s), Hong Jisoo | Joshua & Original Female Character(s)
Series: Earth 17 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2003008
Kudos: 15





	1. First-Period Biology

**Author's Note:**

> this has been crossposted to both wattpad and tumblr (which, i think, was a mistake) and there are already two chapters up so expect the next one soon. i'm still relatively new to marvel but i'm trying and i think i've done my research, so... fingers crossed. hopefully this is good enough. this is also my first time posting to ao3 so if i goof something up, don't be afraid to nudge me in the right direction!

_I do not have time for this._

Vernon swung through the air, landing nimbly on the road just a few feet behind the newest menace that had decided to grace his neighborhood with its presence. The self-proclaimed Rhino—basically a guy in a rhinoceros suit, as the name suggested—was tearing down 108th street at breakneck speed, which was almost as fast as Vernon mid-swing. Almost.

“Hey, slow down!” he called as he launched himself towards the suited man, and a little kid with a lollipop gaped as Spider-Man swung right towards the Rhino, legs stretched straight before him. “Tsk, how are we supposed to tango if I can’t even keep up?”

Rhino roared when Vernon dropkicked him right in the middle of his back, but the kick didn’t put him out of commission like Vernon had hoped it would. The villain (and Vernon used the term loosely) swung his fist towards him, but he flipped backwards, landing on top of a car, which dented under the force.

“Why is it _always_ Queens?” Vernon asked, annoyed, as Rhino charged towards him. He pushed off the car to avoid Rhino, who crashed headfirst into the vehicle, sending shards of glass flying everywhere. Right next to it, a yellow Kia’s alarm went off. Vernon, now hanging from the building behind it, huffed. “And why is it always right before school?”

And a Monday, too. Vernon usually allowed for supervillains busting down his metaphorical door on mornings, but Mondays were usually off-limits. _Honestly, what kind of villain gets up at seven a.m. on a_ Monday _?_

Vernon scaled the brick wall of the building, looking for a high vantage point he could drop down from, but even the little effort seemed to tire him out more than usual. Having studied until late night the day before, right after stopping a third try at a robbery on seventy-third (honestly, do these people never learn?), he had only managed to catch about three hours of sleep. It was normal by Spidey standards, but _not_ by Vernon standards. Especially when he was supposed to have a test in first period biology.

“Spider-Man!” Rhino bellowed from three storeys below, snapping Vernon back to the present. He sighed as man demolished another car, no doubt to show off his might or strength or whatever it was villains loved to show off these days. “Face me!”

Vernon looked down. In the morning, everything was awash with sunlight, including Rhino. The suit was a dark gray but didn’t seem to be made of metal, looking about three to four inches thick like some kind of hide-like body armor, and light glinted off the visor that only half-showed his adversary’s face. If he hadn’t been about to be pummeled to death by the guy in rhinoceros suit, he would have appreciated the beautiful workmanship more. The horn was a nice touch.

“If you just wanted to see me, an email would have been _fine!”_ Vernon called, letting go of the wall and righting himself in free-fall as he hurtled towards the Rhino. “No need to put on a show for little ol’ _me_ —”

Okay. Maybe he had miscalculated the distance or maybe Rhino was less distracted than he thought, because instead of _him_ dropping in on the villain like a ton of bricks, Rhino swung his suited arm, catching Vernon in the chest with bone-shattering force, and sent him flying.

Vernon hit the sidewalk with enough force for his body to skid a few feet before coming to a rest. His backpack (which had somehow not been torn to shreds) absorbed most of the blow, but the impact had knocked the wind out of him, and he lay there for a few seconds, wondering if he should just stay down. His head was already pounding, and a sleepy spider was a _grumpy_ spider.

He changed his mind at the last moment as Rhino’s fist swung towards his face, and he flipped onto his back, jumping out of the way just as the fist came down where he had been lying milliseconds ago. Beneath the mask, Vernon’s eyes widened as he saw the blow break the asphalt.

 _I really do_ not _have time for this._

“What the heck is that suit even made of?” he muttered as he dodged another blow, trying to work out a way to subdue Rhino as fast as possible. The suit was big and heavy, which usually made for slower reactions, and a good old webbing-down would have been the perfect way to wrap up the show, but if the suit was strong enough, even his web fluid wouldn’t hold. Vernon had to knock him out somehow.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Rhino made a throaty, hacking sound like could have been laughter. “Unfortunately, you will be dead before you can even get close enough.”

“You know, it doesn’t _have_ to be this way,” Vernon said, dodging yet another attack, resulting in Rhino’s head getting stuck in the cracked windshield of a car for a moment. God, that guy was like a battering ram. He couldn’t keep this up forever. “We can always sit down and talk about this.”

“Spider-Man, I’ll kill you!”

“I’ll take that as a no, then.” Vernon raised his wrists, aiming at the car. _Thwip-thwip_ , went the fluid from his web shooters, trapping the Rhino against the side of the vehicle. “Shame,” he said, as the man thrashed against his web restraints. “I know a _really_ good taco place around here.”

The Rhino yelled, lifting the entire car bodily. Vernon watched as he raised the car over his head, the webbing breaking from the strain of the suit against them, and threw it directly at him.

_Ah, crap._

Vernon would like to think he would have managed to get away from there in time even if someone hadn’t snatched him up into the air, but he doubted it. There was something majestic about watching a villain he’d underestimated lift a whole car up to throw at him.

The person caught him under the arms and lifted him into the air, away from the enraged roar of the Rhino that resounded throughout the street. Vernon’s first reaction to being picked cleanly off the road would be fear, but his spider sense hadn’t gone off yet. He tried to look up at his captor/savior, but the back of his head collided with something hard. “Ow,” he mumbled. “Who the hell are you?”

“The guy who just saved your ass, webhead,” the boy replied derisively. Or at least it sounded like a boy, very much like those guys in the cafeteria who used to drop snide remarks behind Vernon’s back pre-spider bite. The guy dropped him on the roof of a shorter building, and Vernon rolled out of the way, getting to his feet. The boy was dressed in a metallic-looking dark blue-and-gold suit, a bucket-like helmet over his head. The lower of his face was uncovered, exposing lips twisted into a scowl. “I’m not even getting a thank-you?”

“…thanks,” Vernon muttered after scrutinizing the guy for a moment. “Uh, who are you actually?”

“I’m Nova, creep.”

“Nova Creep.” He considered this. “Interesting.”

“Just _Nova!_ ” the boy snapped, sounding even more displeased than before. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my _team_ and save the frickin’ _neighborhood._ ”

Saying this, he turned and took off again, no doubt heading for wherever the action was. Vernon watched him go, choosing to take a breather instead of following him back down.

New superheroes in town? It wasn’t unheard of, and Vernon had had his fair share of newbies and oldies both to deal with in his year-long career as Queens’s friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

He looked down over the edge of the roof. Sure enough, there were three of them—a girl in a white suit, moving around the wreckage like an acrobat and slashing at the Rhino’s suit, Nova Creep shooting fist lasers (Flight powers _and_ fist lasers? Unfair.) at him, and—was that Iceman?

Vernon hesitated. He could join the fight and help finish it more quickly, but if _Iceman_ was here, the X-Men couldn’t be farther away. He could leave the three to it and get to school in time to catch forty winks before class, no harm done. Was he even needed?

Unfortunately, he knew he was only giving himself the illusion of choice. Spider-Man never walked away from a fight, even if someone more capable was dealing with it.

He shot webs at the metal post hanging out from the opposing building and swung back down, joining the fight just as Rhino caught the girl around the middle like he had Vernon, sending her flying back into an already wrecked car. Vernon cushioned her landing with webs, managing to protect her body from the broken metal chassis, and she was back on her feet in seconds, joining his side.

“Thanks,” she said, which surprised him. Most superheroes didn’t take the time out to thank him, but that was usually unnecessary, since they evened out the score by saving his life. “You know this guy?”

“Nah, he’s new in town,” he replied, watching Nova and Iceman fight the Rhino. Iceman froze him from the legs to his waist, but it didn’t hold for long before Rhino broke through the ice. “Strong, though, I’ll give him that.”

“It’s the suit,” the girl told him. Now that they were up close, Vernon could see that her costume somewhat resembled a white tiger, with the pointed ears and yellow eyes. He wondered if she’d been bitten by a radioactive white tiger. “It’s made of some kind of polymer.”

“Polymer?” he echoed, even more surprised. He’d assumed metal.

“Self-regenerating,” she affirmed. “It’s not indestructible—I slashed through the hide with my claws, but—”

“Your claws?”

She raised her hand. Under the white glove, her nails extended into wicked, claw-like tips. “Cool,” he said, voice cracking halfway through the word. He cleared his throat. “Very Woverine-ish.”

“He’s a mutant,” she said dismissively. What was he supposed to call her? Tigerwoman? Tigergirl? “Rhino’s suit regenerates. We have to knock him out.”

“Yeah, I figured that one out,” Vernon muttered.

“A little help here?!” Nova yelled, zipping through the air in a zigzag manner to avoid the Rhino’s hits. “Or are you two going to stand around and chat all _day?”_

Vernon’s lips twitched into an unintentional smile. “I’ll web him up,” he told tiger lady. “You think Nova can pull him up?”

Tiger inclined her head. “Not on his own, but with a little frosty boost…”

“Great.” He sprinted towards the group, shooting webs at the Rhino’s head to get his attention and distract him from the others. “Hey, Hippo! Over here!”

The Rhino ripped off the webbing from his visor, not wasting a moment before charging him. Vernon lunged, wrapping the Rhino suit up in webs as he scaled the wall, trapping him in the web fluid. It wouldn’t hold for long, he knew—but he only needed a few seconds. And some blind faith.

The excessive webbing wrapped around Rhino like a net trap, and Vernon pulled, lifting him into the air with as much strength as he could muster. Below him, Iceman froze a column of ice under the Rhino’s butt, giving him a little extra height. _Ten feet…twenty feet…_

“Tiger!” Vernon yelled.

She lunged, pushing off the hood of a dented car to give her extra height, and ripped through the thin web holding him up with her claws. Rhino plummeted to the ground, crashing into a car and through it, the fall only broken by the ground, the asphalt cracking beneath the force.

Vernon watched him anxiously. The suit should have been heavy enough to render the man inside unconscious, unless he had a _really_ good cushioning system in place.

He counted to ten in his head. Rhino didn’t move.

 _Thank god for bad cushioning,_ Vernon thought, swinging back down to the ground. “You guys think you could carry him?” he asked the three. Iceman didn’t even look over, broodily watching the unconscious villain’s body. Oh well. “He’s a heavy hitter.”

“We could make it back to S.H.I.E.L.D. with him,” Tiger said. Then she glanced at him, cocking her head in a perplexed manner. “Wait, why do you—”

“I gotta run.” He shrugged sheepishly, adjusting the straps of his bag, which had only undergone minimal damage. The wonders never ceased. “You see, I’m late to first period biology.”

* * *

Vernon crashed through the doors of his school so fast he almost ploughed down Joshua, who had been standing just before the entrance, probably waiting for him.

The journey hadn’t taken more than a few minutes—he tried not to change clothes in suspicious-smelling service alleys as much as possible, but some situations left him no choice—but he only had a few minutes to get to class, and detention was something he couldn’t afford to get. He hated disappointing Aunt May more than he hated getting his ass beat by some B-list villain.

“Hey, hey, hey, relax,” Joshua said, righting him. The hallways were almost empty, but not quite, indicating that he wasn’t too late to the not-party. The boy fixed his glasses, giving Vernon a look. “Did you get into a fight?”

Vernon blinked at him. “What? No. This guy called Rhino—”

 _“Shh.”_ Joshua dragged him to one side, away from earshot of the general populace of Midtown High, and gave him a concerned look. “Dude, your face is _bleeding._ ”

Joshua was one of the only few individuals in the world who knew about Vernon’s identity as Spider-Man, which was just as well, because if it hadn’t been for his blue-haired best friend he would have walked into a test with his nose gushing like a bloody geyser. “Thanks,” he mumbled, when Joshua handed him a clean-looking handkerchief. He raised it to his face. “Did you wipe your nose on this?”

Joshua made a face. “Not that I remember.”

“Good enough.” He cleaned off the blood as well as he could, which was hard, because he was feeling jittery and apparently his hands agreed. “Do I look fine?”

“You never look _fine_ , my friend,” his friend said sagely. “But you look like you always do, so I guess, yes.”

Vernon shot him a grim smile, and started down the corridor towards 12-B, which was where he was supposed to be in ten minutes. He wasn’t even late, actually, but Mr. Malkin didn’t need a big excuse to give someone a C+ for a tardy warning. Joshua followed close behind. “So, which guy beat you up this time?”

“I didn’t get beat up.” Vernon rolled his eyes. “Well, not _entirely—_ ”

 _“Vernon Parker, report to room 10-A.”_ Both the boys’ heads whipped up towards the source of the sound, which came as an announcement from the speakers. _“Vernon Parker, room 10-A, please.”_

“What?” Vernon whirled on Joshua, panicked. The blue-haired boy’s eyes were wide behind his glasses, but he only shrugged in response. “But the test!”

He tried to think back to anything wrong he might have done in the past few weeks to get called aside like this, but he couldn’t think of anything. Plus, he hadn’t been summoned to the principal’s office, which confused him even more. Why room 10-A?

“Now you’ve had it, Parker,” Flash Thompson said as he passed them, grinning.

Vernon scowled at his retreating back, his grip tightening around the bag strap. “Whatever,” he muttered, then threw Joshua his bag. “Take it to the class, won’t you? I’ll try to get back as soon as I can.”

Without waiting for affirmation, he jogged off to find room 10-A, wanting to get whatever it was over with so he would get back on time. When he got there, the room was empty except for a lady in a pencil skirt and jacket, holding a clipboard in her hand. Upon his entry, she smiled at him in a friendly way, which only served to tick him off further.

“Whatever this is, couldn’t I do it some other time?” he pleaded. He hadn’t seen this staff member before, but he didn’t seem to be in trouble, and his grades had enough pull to get him out of some random appointment before classes. “I have a test in like, five minutes.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already talked to your teacher about this,” the woman said, continuing to smile. She gestured to one of the seats. “Take a seat.”

Reluctantly, he obliged, not really having an excuse not to now. “What is _this,_ exactly?” he asked. Now that panic had taken a backseat, doubt was beginning to creep in. Why only him? And how had he never seen this woman before?

“In light of recent events, the school has decided to start counselling sessions for all of the students to help them cope,” she said. She had a really nice smile, her skin tan and unblemished, cheeks dimpled. “I’m Melia Fox,” she said. “I just need to ask you a few questions, and you can be on your way.”

He stared back at her, miffed. A year of incidents, and they suddenly decided to have counselling sessions _now?_ “Why just me?” he asked slowly. “I’m sorry, but isn’t there some kind of rule or protocol for—”

“There is,” said a new voice. Vernon whipped around, and there at the end of the classroom, where moments ago had been nothing but air, stood a tall black man with an eyepatch. “And Agent Fox is following it.”

Vernon gaped. “I—what?”

“Spider-Man,” Nicky Fury said, with a note of muted resolution in his voice, “we need to have a little chat.”


	2. Team Project

"Is this about me leaving Rhino on Midtown's front porch?" Vernon demanded. "Because if it is, I'll have you know that I left him in _good hands—_ "

"Calm down, Wonder Kid," Fury said. He didn't look amused like Vernon had hoped, which meant that whatever he'd come here to talk about was serious. Well, what else should he have expected from the head of S.H.I.E.L.D.? "It's not about that. Well—not entirely. It's about the _good hands_ you mentioned."

Vernon narrowed his eyes. He'd met Fury a few times before, and never during favorable conditions. The last time he's seen the guy, Spider-Man had almost been pummeled to death by none other than the Goblin himself. "They said something about bringing him to S.H.I.E.L.D.," he muttered. "I should have guessed."

Fury didn't respond, instead reaching inside his jacket to bring out an envelope. He threw the open envelope onto the table in front of Vernon, making a few pictures half spill out from inside. "You know what that is?"

Vernon glanced at him suspiciously before slowly picking up the pictures and going through them. Each of them was a glossy shot of various locations in New York, and all of them had a major recurring theme—the places were completely trashed. Overturned cars, building walls with holes in them, bent lampposts. Wearily, he set the pictures down face-up on the table, then looked up at the man, who stared back with an unreadable expression on his face.

A beat passed. "Was that a rhetorical question?"

"Jesus, kid," Fury muttered. "All of those pictures were taken moments after a fight between you and one of your fanclub members. Now, I'm not saying I don't appreciate you taking care of a couple of minor criminals in the city—"

_"Minor criminals?"_

"—but I can't let you treat the place like it's your neighborhood playpen," he finished. Next to him, the pretty agent-slash-counselor sat with her legs folded, her surprisingly stern gaze fixed on Vernon. The attention made him squirm. "S.H.I.E.L.D. is a global defense organization, for god's sake. We don't have the time to clean up after kids who don't know even know their three Rs."

"Let me guess," Vernon said, "rock, roll, ramble?"

"Even your wisecracks aren't funny anymore, kid." Fury shook his head.

 _Ouch._ "That hurt my feelings."

The man glared at him out of his one good eye. "You can't keep going like this forever," he said. "You're on your way to be one of the greats—don't look at me like that, hell if I'm gonna repeat that—but the big guys take care of their messes. They don't leave poor innocent civilians behind to get new paint jobs on their Kias. All that damage your careless fighting left behind, who's gonna take care of that?"

"Insurance?" Vernon suggested. Agent Fox cracked a smile, warming his insides. Her sitting aside in silence as Fury chewed him out was a little unnerving. He wondered if looking on silently while high-rankers lectured kids was something she had to do regularly. _You gotta have a heart of ice to sit through that._

"You are," Fury said grimly, and Vernon blinked. "And you're gonna start _today._ "

"What was it that you really wanted?" Vernon asked, crossing his arms over his chest, making his t-shirt stretch tight over his biceps. He really needed to go shopping. "You can't tell me the world's best spy came all the way to some backwater high school just to lecture a kid about cleanliness being next to godliness."

"You're a special case, Parker," Fury said, and Vernon placed a hand over his heart, mockingly going _aw_. "And you're right. I'm not here just to lecture you about your repeated careless mistakes, I'm here to help you fix them."

Vernon looked at him suspiciously, already wary of what was to come next. "And how do you propose I do that?"

"You've already shown me multiple times you can't do it yourself," Fury said. "Look, kid, here's the thing: you have a problem, and I have a problem. I also happen to have a joint solution to both."

Vernon slumped in his chair. _Here it comes._ "What problem could _you_ possibly have? Nuclear warheads threatening to destroy civilians' Kias in Manhattan?"

"You really gotta work on those one-liners." Fury sighed. "There's a group of kids in the Helicarrier like you—up-and-coming superheroes in need of some real-world experience. They've got the training you need to handle jobs with efficiency, and you have the practical experience. They've got the goods—just like you—but nowhere real to practice them."

"You mean _those_ guys," Vernon said, sitting up and recalling the three who had helped him in the fight against Rhino. "You mean—you want me to _teach_ them?"

"I want you to work with them," Fury said. "Train with them, fight with them, lead what could be the next greatest team of post-humans."

"So basically, your solution is to sic a bunch of newbies on me as some kind of _damage control,_ " Vernon said angrily. "And what if I refuse?"

"Nothing," the spy answered simply. "You're not under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s official jurisdiction yet, so I can't do anything to you even if I want to—unless, of course, I absolutely have to. You're allowed to walk out of here right now, but I can't guarantee that that's gonna work out for you."

Vernon considered this. He knew a threat when he heard one, even when it wasn't a yell of _SPIDER-MAN, I'M GONNA KILL YOU,_ but he also knew that Nick Fury's threats weren't always real threats. However, he did not like his chances.

"As long as they stay out of my business," he muttered, knowing that was the one thing they were least likely to do. He knew how closely teams operated, and it didn't take his spider sense to figure out that this team was going to be much nosier than that. He recalled the annoyed scowl on that Nova guy's face, and internally shuddered.

"It's a deal," Fury said pleasantly, as if Vernon had any choice but to accept the so-called 'deal'. "I'll be checking in regularly, so bear in mind that I'll know if you ever kill one of your teammates and throw their body into the East River."

"I would never go to that much trouble," he replied equally pleasantly, getting up. Then he glanced at the clock, and scowled. "I can't believe you made me skip my biology quiz for five minutes of parental guidance."

"Oh, I'd never lie to a teacher, kid," Fury said, patting his shoulder as he passed him. "A counseling session I promised, and a counseling session you will get."

Vernon glanced at the other agent in dismay, but she only smiled—whether in amusement or reassurance, he couldn't tell. She clicked her pen, picking up the pad, her eyes twinkling. "Settle down, Spider-Man," she said. "This will only take forty minutes."

* * *

Vernon almost considered opting out of eating in the cafeteria, but changed his mind at the last moment, knowing it was the only time other than first period biology he got to see Joshua on Mondays. He desperately needed to vent, and his bespectacled friend was the only one who even came close to understanding to the layers of his identity, one of which was a deep-rooted hatred for the universal authority on superheroes.

So he stalked right into lunch, barely noticing the gunk of whatever-it-was thwacking into his plastic tray, and headed for their usual table in the corner of the cafeteria. He didn't need to go that far to get to Joshua, however, as the blue-haired boy almost walked smack into him as he made his way there.

"Woah, woah, steady," Joshua said, grabbing his bicep to prevent them from colliding. "Why are you making like a steamroller towards that innocent little table? And what the hell were you during biology? What was _that_ about?"

Vernon cast a careful glance around the cafeteria, at the crowd of people, one of which could easily overhear them in the close range. "I'll give you the details later," he murmured. "The cusp of the matter is: Fury blackmailed me into signing up for a team activity."

"Wait, wait, wait, _Nick_ Fury?" Joshua asked in awe as they walked over to the table, gripping his tray tightly and hunching his shoulders, leaning slightly towards Vernon in interest. "You mean he was here, in this school?"

"Not even the first time, Josh."

"Not the—" Joshua shook his head, as if shooing away the thoughts. "Okay. Filing that information away for further perusal later. So you're telling me Nick Fury, super-spy, came to _this place_ —" he spread his arms, indicating the school— "to talk to you. Man, sometimes I forget Spider-Man's supposed to be a household name."

"Shut _up_ ," Vernon hissed, casting a furtive glance at a heavily tattooed blonde who passed them by closely. "But yeah. And he asked me to team up with these noobs from the S.H.I.E.L.D. future program or something."

Joshua frowned. "But that's kind of cool, though, right?"

"Not if they're gonna slow me down," he replied. "Spider-Man's always operated alone, and—wait, what the hell?"

He stopped in his tracks right before the table, a stunned expression on his face. Joshua raised his eyebrows, following his gaze to the table, which was, surprisingly enough, already occupied.

 _She_ was there, of course, at her usual seat, the third from the left, except she was not alone. There was another girl, with dark hair and piercing eyes, picking at a soggy fry with her lips pursed. Next to her was a brooding blond with freckles that stood out against his shockingly pale skin. Last, but not the least, was the boy with the tanned skin who was making Vernon's best friend laugh so hard she was doubled over, a familiar cocky edge to his smile.

"Ah," Joshua said.

Lucy Langdon was one of Vernon's, and therefore Spider-Man's, biggest pressure points. She was also one of the only ones who had been left virtually untouched by all his superhero shenanigans, and he wanted to keep it that way. Though she was smart enough keep up with a few new trainees, as far as Vernon was concerned, she was strictly off-limits. Even to superheroes who could fly and called themselves _Nova._

Vernon stalked over to the table and slammed his tray on the surface so hard he made everyone jump. Then he glared at the boy sitting next to her, the one with the bronzed skin, as Joshua stood by awkwardly. "You're in my seat," he said pointedly.

The boy cocked a lazy eyebrow, gesturing to the unoccupied seats opposite him. "I don't see your name on it."

Vernon ground his teeth, raising his hand (no doubt to petulantly slam it down on the table next to his tray) but Joshua grabbed his wrist, giving him a meaningful look. "Don't start anything that can be easily avoided," he muttered to the boy, and Vernon relented, albeit grudgingly.

"You're late," Lucy said conversationally, though your voice was higher than usual, probably because of the sudden tension that had descended upon the table. Vernon sat down slowly, still glaring at the boy, and she glanced at Joshua, who only shrugged. "These are, uhm, they're new."

"I figured," Vernon muttered.

"Three in one day? And this late into the year?" Joshua wondered aloud, raising his eyebrows. "Now I'm curious."

"Nothing worth your curiosity, I'm afraid," the new girl replied. Her eyes, when they swept over Vernon, were watchful and aware. "Just a coincidence. I was supposed to join earlier but there was a family emergency. As for these two, I can only guess." Her smile was small but sharp. "I'm Yeji."

"Felix," said the blond. He looked gloomy, but maybe it was just because of the unhealthy-looking pallor of his skin.

"And I'm Yangyang," the last boy said, with an impish grin that rubbed Vernon the wrong way. He already knew who these three were supposed to be—actually, everyone was supposed to know Felix, since Iceman was already a pretty famous member of the X-Men. Surely dyed hair couldn't be the only change needed to disguise that face? "Me and Felix are cousins, actually."

"Felix and I," Vernon mumbled under his breath, and Lucy gave him a look which he ignored. "Since when did you start taking people in for charity?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Be nice," she said. "They were in my Home Economics class, and if it hadn't been for Yeji here, I might have blown up the marble cake I was supposed to be making."

Joshua frowned. "How?"

"A story for another day." She smiled an unreadable smile, dark eyes sparkling. "Now—"

"No," Vernon said.

She glanced at him. "Excuse me?"

"No," he repeated. Then, as jerkily as he had sat down, he got up, and jabbed a finger at the new arrivals in turn, before pointing over his shoulder. "You three," he said venomously, "to the corridor. Now."

* * *

"Aw, man, I can't believe you're being so sensitive about this," Yangyang—Nova—complained loudly, though there was a shit-eating grin on his face as he followed Vernon into the hallway. "So Fury transferred us into your school without checking with you first. Big deal. What are you supposed to be, the queen of England?"

Vernon gave him a spiteful look, but otherwise ignored his remark. Instead, he focused on Yeji, who was watching him patiently, because she looked like the most sensible member of the group. He stared at her for a long moment, struggling to find the words that would convey the exact measure of his indignance. "Why?" he asked finally, giving up.

She shrugged helplessly. "Look, we didn't ask for this, either," she answered. "We're under orders, so it's not like we can just up and leave. Huddling in the hallway isn't a smart decision, either—we already have all eyes on us because of being the three new kids who randomly joined on the same day, and this is only making us look even more suspicious."

Vernon glared at her, trying to think of a good argument, then gave up. He turned on Felix, who was standing off to the side with folded arms, still looking uninterested in the conversation. "You," he said, narrowing his eyes, "you're Iceman."

Felix looked at him neutrally. "Yes."

"You're not under S.H.I.E.L.D.," Vernon said, pointing an accusatory finger. "And you have enough real-world experience, so there's no reason for you to be here instead of with the X-Men—"

"Dude," Felix said frostily; no pun intended. "Drop it."

Yeji nodded, giving Vernon a meaningful look he could not decipher.

"Aw, come _on_ , web-head," Yangyang interjected. "We saved your life and you didn't even thank us, but I'll let that go since your manners aren't exactly polished. But this is just boring."

"It is _not,_ " Vernon seethed. "I'll talk to Fury—"

Yangyang snorted. "Good luck with that."

"—or the principal—"

"The new principal," Yeji muttered. "Agent Coulson."

Vernon made an exasperated noise. "The only reason I even agreed to Fury's stupid offer was because I thought it would get him off my case!" he yelled. "School is the only part of my life that's separate from all the wacky crap I have to deal with otherwise, and now even _that—"_ He clenched his teeth. "If I'd known it meant having _you_ people barge into my life like this—"

"Then you couldn't have done anything about it, even knowing," Yeji said, gently cutting him off. "Face it, hero. You're stuck with us as much as we're stuck with you—whether any of us like it or not."


	3. A Little Nighttime Swinging

Vernon almost jumped out of his seat when his phone buzzed.

And while he managed to keep his butt firmly planted, he did accidentally swipe half the stuff off his table, phone included. Granted, he should have been paying more attention—usually, he’d be alert and ready for the pestering texts about the day’s homework, but today he had been too tired to keep his eyes open for long.

He wiped the drool gathered at one corner of his mouth and swiped his phone up off the ground, his fingers going on autopilot as they entered the passcode and clicked open the messenger app.

**_LUCE:_ **

page 25

wtf is a fitting reaction

nvm it’s fittig

**_VERNON:_ **

reminds of the time you found a milf in the history textbook

**_LUCE:_ **

the past is in the past

let it gooo

anyway send me the answers to q 11 through 13 and i’ll buy u whatever u want from larry’s on friday

Vernon snorted a laugh, then clicked off without answering. _Bold of her to assume I don’t already have someone else to pay for my order._ Somehow, though, the text from her had been almost relieving. After all the new changes, he had almost expected her _not_ to text him. It was stupid, he knew, but he couldn’t help being a little apprehensive about the new superhero stuff taking over his regular routine.

He glanced back at the ground, where an old notebook with plans for web shooter mods lay open on the ground, loose pages spilling out. It was already dark out, but the streetlights hadn’t been switched on yet—a good time to sneak out in his suit without being seen; he didn’t want Mrs. Jones next door wondering why Spider-Man was swinging out of Vernon Parker’s bedroom window when she went out for her evening walk.

He exhaled through his teeth, blinking hard to push back any remaining sleepiness. Most of his homework remained yet to be done, but in his defense, he’d had a lot on his mind, not to mention his running on less sleep and more leftover Rhino-induced adrenaline.

He was tired. His was the kind of exhaustion that seeped into his bones and trickled into the empty corners of his mind, making him want move instead of lie down and rest for a while. It was the kind of tiredness you could only wash away by doing, and as long as he was Spider-Man, there was always something to do.

He clicked off the reading light, dousing the room in darkness. His senses were awake, as if straining for the stimulus of the city, and he needed a good nighttime swing to clear his mind anyway. _I deserve a break._

Changing into the costume took all of forty-five seconds, picking up the fallen books three seconds. After sticking a pillow under the bedcovers, Vernon perched on the window pane, looking out into the chilly backyard below. Somehow, changing into his suit and swinging out from his actual neighborhood seemed even more thrilling than swinging in.

_Maybe if I go out this way, those three won’t be able to follow._

“Vernon, are you in there?”

His heart almost leaped out of his throat at the voice. Vernon turned, eyes wide, eyes zooming in on the shadow lurking at the bottom of his bedroom door, where a little light seeped in from outside. The lock clicked as Aunt May’s hand pressed down on the handle, and the door opened a crack.

“Don’t come in, I’m naked!” he yelled in a fit of panic, backflipping from the window onto the mattress, making the bedsprings squeak tellingly under his weight. _Stupid, stupid, stupid._ He was so sleep-deprived he’d forgotten about locking the _door._

Rule number one of hiding your secret identity from your all-seeing aunt: never leave the bedroom door open.

“Oh,” his aunt’s voice came from outside. The light spilling in from the crack in the door receded as she pulled the door shut again. “I just wanted to ask, dear, aren’t you going to eat anything? You haven’t had a bite since you came back from school.”

 _Crap, that’s true,_ he thought, the muscles of his stomach tightening at the thought. _I’ll swing by the candy store downtown._ “Uh, I don’t think I will,” he said. “I’m not hungry, er—think I might be coming down with something.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” May’s worried voice sounded, the door beginning to open again. “I could have whipped you up a—”

 _“No!”_ he yelled, instinctively pulling the covers up to his chest. “Naked, remember?”

The door closed again. “Well, put something on,” she replied. “And I’ll make you some soup.”

“You do that,” he muttered loudly, already feeling guilt pool in the pit of his stomach at making her so something for him. But what else was he supposed to do? “Actually, no, don’t bother. I can feel a headache coming on already. I’ll turn in for the night and have a big breakfast tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to anything?”

“Yeah,” he said. “And don’t come in! Because—you know—germs and stuff. Really nasty bug going around in school, one of the kids in my class had it. Don’t wanna infect you too.”

He heard her sigh, but it was an accepting sigh, albeit a little reluctant. “All right,” she said, and the shadow under the door pulled back a little. “Good night, Vernon.”

“Night, Aunt May,” he said, watching the slit of light under the door until the shadow receded completely. As soon as he was in the clear, he breathed a sigh of relief, slipping off the covers.

Those S.H.I.E.L.D. guys had it easy.

* * *

Although he couldn’t feel the night air on his bare skin, swinging through the city at night always left him feeling refreshed. It was a little ironic, sure, physical exertion energizing him, but Vernon suspected it was more of a psychological thing. Being out here in the open reminded him of who he actually was supposed to be—not just Vernon Parker, the tired highschooler with leftover chemistry homework, but crime-fighting, wall-crawling, not-homework-doing Spider-Man.

He landed on the roof of a high building, hitting the concrete with a satisfying _plunk._ Everything seemed more alive at night. Even from up here, he could hear the sounds of humanity on the street below, loud voices running into each other over the noise of traffic. The Daily Bugle billboard on the high building opposite him was lit up—Jameson probably dragging him like always—but Vernon tuned it out. The last thing he needed right now was _more_ negativity.

He was about to leap off the side again when his ears picked up a soft sound behind him. _Bad guys,_ he thought reflexively, before realizing there was a much better explanation.

His jaw clenched, shoulders tightening before he forced them to relax. “You can come out now,” he called without turning, upset rippling through his body despite him desperately trying not to show it. “There’s no point in hiding if you can’t even do it properly.”

Their hesitation was almost audible, but then she stepped out from behind the small roof door. Tiger’s white suit was stark against the dark sky, her mask’s cat ears perked like Daredevil’s horns. He had to admit it was pretty impressive that she’d managed to stay unnoticed that long.

Nova floated up from the side of the building next, carrying a disgruntled-looking Felix. Seeing the latter out of his X-Men costume felt strange, like seeing Fury without his eyepatch. There was definitely something up with him, but Vernon didn’t want to pry, so he stored the suspicion away for later perusal.

“You can sense non-threatening presences with your spider sense?” Nova asked, looking both annoyed and awed. “Your file didn’t say that.”

Vernon was tempted to lie just to spite him, but stopped himself. If these guys were going to be his teammates, lying about his abilities probably wasn’t the best way to go. “No, you’re just bad at stealth,” he replied, deadpan. “How did you even find me? No, wait, let me guess—camera outside my house?”

“Tracker on your suit, actually,” Tiger said. Despite the mask covering her face, he could sense her guilt, which didn’t help his case. “We can’t learn to work together if you keep running away from us.”

“Running? I wasn’t running,” he said defensively. “And if you want us to work together, the best place to start is to tell me your name.”

“You already know my name.”

“Your _other_ name.”

“Ah.” Her head tilted up. The high ponytail coming out the back of her head flicked to the side as nodded. “White Tiger.”

“A bit simplistic, but to the point.” He nodded in mock-approval. “Makes me think I should’ve just named myself _Radioactive Spider.”_

She didn’t take the bait, which was probably for the better. “So, what?” Nova asked, and Vernon was suddenly reminded of how infuriating his voice was. “Are you just going to stand around all night?”

“Swing around, actually,” he said. “It’s a big place. Sooner or later, I’m bound to find a crime happening. Sometimes it even happens to _me.”_

As if on cue, sirens sounded in the distance, loud and piercing. He shrugged at the three, before turning around and balancing himself on the edge. “If you want to get some real-world experience, there’s nothing better than stopping a petty robbery,” he said. “I hope you can keep up—because _I’m_ not going to slow down.”

And he dived.

There was that feeling again, the air pressure against his body as he fell headfirst like a comet towards the busy street. A couple of people looked up as he pulled up at the last moment, shooting webs at an overhead lamppost and swinging in a circle around it before letting go, launching his body into the air again.

He looked over the rooftops as he swung, half-curious about how the others were going to follow. A small, white-clad figure leaped from building to building with surprising grace and strength, able to match him in speed. Nova flew alongside him, carrying Iceman again, who still wasn’t using his powers. Vernon knew it wasn’t a case of loss of powers either, because then he wouldn’t be here, and plus, he’d seen the guy in action this morning. Was he trying to remain inconspicuous?

 _The less people know Iceman’s in town, the better,_ he thought, though he knew it was a futile effort. The Rhino fight in the morning hadn’t had any live coverage, but he knew for all its lectures, S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t going to bother with hiding its tracks either. School next day was probably going to be buzzing with talk about the new superheroes.

He gritted his teeth. All this in a day. He could imagine how bad everything was going to get in the coming days.

Mid-swing, he saw the crime happening up ahead, a group of masked men trying to break into a store through the back door in a poorly-lit area. Vernon balanced on a high lamppost without alerting them, taking a moment to assess the situation. There were about eight men in balaclavas—a lot for a simple robbery. Maybe they were first-timers. Easy enough to take down.

“A _record_ store?” he wondered aloud, and one of the guys whirled around, looking up at him with wide eyes. “What are you guys doing stealing from record stores?”

“Spider-Man!” one of them yelled, though he didn’t really see the point, since anyone who hadn’t noticed him yet probably deserved whatever was coming.

The man who had noticed him first fumbled for something along his hip before pulling out a gun and pointing it at him. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot!”

“Oh, no, don’t shoot!” he called out, and the man’s taut shoulders relaxed somewhat before Vernon shot a web straight at the gun, jerking it right out of his hand. “Can’t believe you fell for that.”

He jumped, landing on the ground in a crouch. The leader of the little group, the one who had been trying to bust open the door with a crowbar, stepped forward, swinging said crowbar in what Vernon guessed was supposed to be a menacing way. “Step aside,” he said to his men, his eyes narrowed on Vernon. “I’ll take care of the Spider.”

Vernon was so amused he let the guy attempt to swing at him, dodging the crowbar at the last moment. “Okay, not gonna lie,” he said. “When you called me _the Spider_ , it made me feel kind of sexy.”

He kicked the robber in the side, sending him flying into a trashcan. The rest of the group hesitated only a moment before closing in again. Vernon webbed the lid of the trashcan, swinging it around like a shot-put player and knocking back some of them, before he let go, sending it crashing into one.

Nova dropped Felix in the midst of the group, and his skin slowly solidified into ice. “Okay, playtime’s over now,” he said. “If you just give up, I won’t have to bash your heads in.”

“Where did _you_ come from?” one of the men asked, clearly surprised, right before Iceman froze him into a life-sized ice sculpture.

Vernon knocked out another man with a good old punch to the face. His spider sense buzzed. _The crowbar guy,_ he thought as he whirled around, hands spread in shooting position, but White Tiger was already there, slicing through his crowbar with her claws. “Thanks,” he murmured, as she put him out of commission with a well-placed roundhouse.

She inclined her head. “Don’t get distracted.”

He turned, seeing Nova’s fists start to glow as he aimed at the guy who was attempting to sneak away. Vernon’s eyes landed behind him, where an unsuspecting civilian car was coming down the street. “No!” he yelled, webbing a surprised Nova to the wall.

“Hey, man, what the heck?!” Nova yelled back, struggling against the webs. Vernon shot web fluid at the guy who had been trying to escape, wrapping him up like a cocoon. There was the muffled sound of something heavy falling as Tiger drop-kicked the last one, cleanly finishing what he admitted would otherwise have taken longer. She leaped across the street, slicing through the webs covering Nova, who dropped to the sidewalk.

“What the hell was that for?” he asked, stalking up to Vernon with his fists clenched. “I had that guy!”

“No, you almost sent him crashing into that car,” Vernon said, gesturing at the vehicle behind him that now passed unharmed. “When in a fight, civilians are always first priority. They can’t defend themselves like us.”

Nova scowled, but turned on his heel and marched away, muttering something about him stealing the glory. Vernon watched him go with a frown, then turned around.

One of the robbers lay webbed-up, two quite literally frozen in place, five knocked out. The fight had taken a total of about two minutes—not a record, but considering the number they were going against, surprisingly efficient. He wasn’t even sure if this classified as a fight or simply a one-sided beatdown.

 _Overkill_ , he thought, then sighed. “You people have a lot to learn.”

“Oh, come on,” Iceman said. He seemed energized after the fight as his skin melted back to normal, a lively glint in his eye where there hadn’t been one a few minutes ago. “That was so much fun.”

“Yeah, but you have to learn to care about _collateral damage,”_ he snapped, trying and failing to hide his annoyance. Now that he wasn’t swinging alone, crime-fighting wasn’t half as fun, even if it was twice as fast. Having someone watch his back was safe, sure, but it could lead to him letting his guard down. And what if he ended up somewhere alone? “You’re fast, but we’re not fighting in a vacuum. We’re not fighting a war, we’re protecting people. That’s supposed to be the most important thing—making sure no one gets hurt.”

“Even these guys?” Nova asked, toeing one of the unconscious robbers.

“Yeah, even these guys,” Vernon said. “Well, _they_ can be hurt a little bit, but that’s only because there’s no other way to stop them. Next time, make sure you’re not letting any innocent people get in the way of your _fun.”_

The group fell silent. He almost felt bad about killing their enthusiasm, but Nova’s recklessness had managed to give him a scare. One more second and he might have had a death on his conscience.

The sirens were closer now. He’d completely forgotten about the cops; web-slinging was a much faster method of travel than cars, and he almost always left them behind. “Come on,” he told the others, casting one last glance around the scene. Something felt off, but he guessed it was just the novelty of working in a team. _Fun day._ “The police will find them. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. whew. this has been pretty much all filler, but there's a lot of plot to come, so i'm trying to build as much dynamic as i can before we get to the actual stuff. but it won't be this tranquil for long, so hold on tight!


	4. Solo

“You’re being a bitch.”

Vernon closed his locker’s door with a click before turning around, looking at the ceiling in exasperation when he heard the accusatory voice. There was a tube light directly above him, brilliant and blinding right in his sight. He turned away as quickly as he had looked up, blinking back the dark spots in his stinging eyes.

He didn’t bother acknowledging Lucy before making his way down the hallway, bag slung over one shoulder. His muscles ached from the previous night’s encounter—he’d ended up swinging around for longer than usual, long after the three had to go back to the Helicarrier for their bedtime. Knowing May wouldn’t be waiting up for him back home had made him a little careless, and the exertion during gym hadn’t helped.

“Don’t you walk away from me, mister!” Luce called behind him. When she saw that he wasn’t stopping, she blew air out of her mouth in irritation before jogging to catch up. “Vernon! What is _up_ with you?”

The hallway was mostly empty, which wasn’t that surprising. He’d had to stay back in the lab to clean up his new partner’s chemical spill, which had, of course, been blamed on him instead. The old Parker luck. “I need to get home, Luce.”

“Do you?” she asked, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. A muscle in her jaw was working, tensing and relaxing at periodic intervals, her eyes fixed on some point in the distance. She was usually relaxed, but her current gait was constrained, like a coiled-up spring. “I saw how you nailed that new kid in gym today. You usually opt out of dodgeball, but—”

“He had it coming,” Vernon said dismissively, but his lips thinned. The new guy she was referring to was Yangyang, who _did_ have it coming, because of his little incident in the cafeteria the day before. Maybe it was a little uncalled for, but Vernon still honestly believed he had deserved it at least a little bit. “And you’re not supposed to chew gum in the school.”

“Neither are you supposed to be mean to people for no reason, but we’re all sinners.” Luce shrugged, and he bit back a few choice words. She pushed through the door as they reached the exit, and he shielded his eyes against the hot midday sun that’s shone directly at them. “For real, though. You got him good—I’ve never seen you so hostile towards anyone save for Flash. Did Yangyang say something to you?”

For some reason, her knowing his name annoyed Vernon even further. “Did you get the answers to those questions yesterday?” he asked, switching the subject.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Very funny.” The laces of her converse were untied, a band pin on the lapel of her jacket wobbly, a few strands loose from her dark ponytail. He blinked, tearing his mind away from the little details of her appearance and tried to focus on walking. Left, right, left. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Yeah, well, I had a headache last night,” he said, grateful he didn’t have to hunt for excuses. His thoughts were already sluggish. “You can ask May.”

“I meant the one about Yangyang.” She paused, and he paused with her, taking a few steps before backtracking towards her. Her eyes were downcast, brow creased thoughtfully. Unconscious little gestures he knew like the back of his hand. Then she glanced up at him, _right_ at him, so suddenly that when her eyes met his he swayed on his feet a little. “You don’t want to tell me, do you?”

 _I can’t, I’m sorry._ But cryptic answers never helped. The last time he had tried withholding something from her that wasn’t his Spider-Man secret—the planned surprise party, for instance—she had persevered until he accidentally let it slip. Plus, she was sharp. A couple of new students, a few matching injuries, and she’d guess those three were superheroes right away. And where would he be then?

“It’s a guy thing,” he said instead, a little white lie he hoped would do the trick. Vernon raked a hand through his hair, pressing his lips into a smile as he squinted at her. “You’re going to embarrass me in front of all these pigeons.”

“The pigeons are half-dead because of New York’s air pollution, I’m pretty sure they have more important things to worry about than some guy’s adjustment problems,” she said, resuming her walk. He waited for her to pass him before following. “Look, I know the new kids are a sudden change after—” She bit the inside of her bottom lip. “Well. After…you know.”

All of a sudden, the atmosphere turned gloomier, as if a cloud had passed overhead. “Yeah,” Vernon said thickly, voice cracking. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I know.”

Lucy glanced at him, and though he wasn’t looking directly at her, he could sense the regret in her eyes. “It must be difficult for them, too,” she said. “Joining a new school in the middle of a session, just a few weeks after…all that.” She shrugged, looking at him, and their eyes met. “There’s no harm in being decent.”

He looked away, feeling the lining of his stomach go hot-and-cold. Even a mention of the incident turned every sunny conversation into something dark and somber, even though it had been months already. The counselor/agent had tried making him open up about it as well, but he’d snapped at her, only to regret it right after. It was a difficult subject for him, especially since he felt at least partially responsible for what had happened—but he couldn’t tell Luce that without revealing more than he was supposed to.

“So you’re still trying to score an interview with Tony Stark?” he asked instead, trying to steer the conversation towards a different topic. “I still can’t believe the board’s letting you do that.”

“Honestly? I think the only reason they agreed to it is because then they won’t have to assign me to anything of _real_ importance,” she said with a small laugh. “They think I can’t do it.”

“Can you?”

“I have my ways,” she said, a glint in her eye. “I’d tell you how, but it’s too dangerous to involve an innocent civilian in my plans.”

“Uh-huh.” He tried not to shake his head. Oh, the irony. “You don’t _have_ to talk to Stark, you know. I’m sure there were other _civilian_ witnesses to the Goblin incident.”

“Yeah, but their accounts have already been reported. I need a superhero for this job.” She blew a strand of her hair out of her eyes. “If not him, who else am I going to talk to? Spider-Man?”

He laughed awkwardly. “Maybe?”

“I think Stark might be easier than that.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s kind of the point of the mask.”

He looked at her in half-surprise, unsure what to feel. They had talked about Spider-Man before, of course, but only in passing. A masked vigilante wouldn’t really be central to their usual conversations. Still, he hadn’t expected her to say that. “Yeah,” he murmured, feeling oddly warm. “I guess it is.”

“Oh, look,” she said, stopping in her tracks again. Vernon raised his eyebrows, following her line of sight to a Daily Bugle billboard on the side of a tall building. “Jameson’s having a field day with those photos of the new guys.”

He took a long look at the screen, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “Why would you show me that?” he mumbled. On the top right corner of the screen was a blurry picture of him with Tiger, Nova, and Iceman, looking like a perfectly normal team of superheroes fighting crime—except for the leftover webbing clinging to Nova’s costume. Distractedly, Vernon wondered what Jameson made of that little detail.

 _“As a sighting in Queens last night reported, it seems that Spider-Man has now deemed it fit to invite even more of his delinquent partners into this city!”_ the man on the screen yelled. If Vernon tried hard enough, maybe he could even see little spit bubbles form in Jameson’s salt-and-pepper moustache during the passionate rant. _“With crime rates already increasing steadily ever since the arrival of this masked menace, who knows what kind of mayhem the new additions to his team will spell for New York?”_

Always the charmer.

“…anyway,” Luce muttered. She was frowning at the screen, but seemed unable to look away. “Who do you think those guys are?”

“Those guys?” Vernon echoed, awkwardly running his thumb along the strap of his bag. What could he say that would arouse the least suspicion? “They seem new.”

_Nailed it._

“Right,” she mumbled, looking distracted, like her mind was far away—never a good sign with this one. “But, as I was saying, I know the past month’s been hard for you. It’s been hard for me, too, but you shouldn’t take it out on a few unsuspecting newbies when they don’t deserve it.”

Vernon kissed his teeth, choosing to stay silent. The last thing he wanted right now was more impromptu therapy, but he knew that trying to dissuade Lucy from speaking would only encourage her. The best he could do was shut up and let her have it.

“You know what’s helped me deal with it?” she asked, and he raised his eyebrows, wanting to get it over with. “Working. Ever since I joined the school newspaper, I’ve been able to keep myself busy. Distracted. I don’t want to sound like a mom, but maybe something like that could work out for you—like an after-school job or something.”

 _Oh, you have no idea._ But he only shrugged, keeping his eyes on the billboard. He had been able to keep busy as Spider-Man, a well-needed distraction from the pain, but now with those three around, it wasn’t the good kind.

“Maybe,” he murmured, watching on as Jameson gesticulated violently onscreen. “We’ll see.”

* * *

Vernon swung the drone trapped at the end of his web in a full circle before letting go, letting it fly through the training room into a collapsed structure of another laser. The drone exploded, sparking as it crashed, crushing the circuit of the lasers in the structure beneath it.

Dusting off his hands, he turned, facing the rest of his ‘team’-mates, who stood to one side, having been watching him as he single-handedly took on the subjects of their training session. He had been going at it for about half an hour now, and it had been strangely satisfying to get to throw stuff around for the heck of it.

Nova stood leaning against the wall next to the control panel, his arms folded over his chest. “You done yet?” he asked in a bored voice.

The drone Vernon had just disabled sparked again, shooting an angry red beam across the room. Vernon clicked his modified web shooters into condensed impact mode and webbed the drone again without looking. The drone crackled once, then its light went dark.

“I am now,” he said, dropping his arm. Felix watched him with bleary eyes as he turned and headed towards the exit, which slid open with a pneumatic hiss. “And since I managed to complete the mission objective _solo_ , I think I’m going to head home.”

“Except you didn’t.” White Tiger landed in his path, executing a perfect handspring that arched high over his head. Her reflexes were as good as his—maybe even better, but he would probably never tell her that.

She crossed her arms, shifting her weight to one leg. Despite the mask covering her features, he could sense how peeved she was through the sheer annoyance radiated by her posture. “The objective was to disable the bots _without_ alerting the security system. You trashed the drones _and_ crashed the system, and the power failure would have initiated a manual site-wide search. If this had been a real mission, we would have been discovered by now.”

“Except this _isn’t_ a real mission,” he said, equally annoyed. “If it had been, I’m pretty sure I would have been able to do the job easily. Six armed drones against one spider? No competition.”

 _“And_ this was supposed to be a team effort,” she snapped. “If this had just been a solo training session, I would have had no problem with you doing what you just did. But in case you forgot, the whole point of this is to prepare us for team combat in real situations, to help us learn to work better, _together._ Your taking on everything alone wasn’t heroic, it was an obstruction of the purpose of this entire thing.”

She took a step back, suddenly, as if reeling from a blow, though he hadn’t even moved. The training room had gone silent—granted, it hadn’t been very noisy in the first, place, but her voice had been so loud and her words so rapid that Vernon had forgotten the silence. Now it pressed down on him, like another layer to his suit.

She dropped her arms to her sides, fingers curling in and out slightly, her claws retracting under the white gloves. “I know it’s difficult for you having to work with someone against your will,” she said, “and I know you don’t like us very much. But that’s not a good enough reason for _you_ to throw away everything _we’ve_ been training for. If you’re not going to be nice, at least try to be _civil.”_

She turned on his heel and stalked out the door. Vernon watched her go, right up until the doors slid back in place behind her.

He turned around, only to find the other two staring back at him. “Way to go,” Felix mumbled.

“You totally got schooled right there,” Yangyang said, though he didn’t sound very amused. “You know she takes this training stuff more seriously than any of us.” He shrugged; arms still folded. “Gotta be more sensitive than that.”

“Stop it,” Felix snapped at him, looking annoyed. “She only cares about this so much because it’s the only thing she’s got. You’ve got the Guardians, and I have—had—the X-Men, and probably a bunch of other mutant organizations, like the Frost Academy or something,” he added the last bit in an undertone, “but S.H.I.E.L.D.—after she lost her family, this is the only place she can turn to. That’s her one chance at making it, but _this_ doofus is refusing to cooperate. If it were me, I’d be pretty pissed.”

Vernon narrowed his eyes at him, but couldn’t find the strength to argue. Too much about what Felix had said hit right where it hurt. Losing someone you cared about, suddenly having nobody to turn to…he understood how bad that was. But losing your entire family _and_ being displaced from your home? He couldn’t even imagine it.

The earlier annoyance had drained from his body like an ebbing tide, leaving nothing but a hollowness and that damned guilt that seemed to follow him everywhere like an annoying ghost. _Oh, well, my fault for having a conscience._

Suddenly tired, he sighed, tearing his eyes from the mutant’s and looking resignedly at a spot on the wall. As much as he would like to have a reason to properly hate his new team, he knew he couldn’t really blame them for any of this. “Where do you think she’ll go?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t—” Yangyang started.

“Up top,” Felix answered, cutting him off. His irises were rings of ice, but when Vernon looked at him then, they seemed almost warm. “Take the elevator to the left. Make sure you don’t fall off the side—New York’s a long way down.”


	5. Job Hunting

Vernon stepped out into the open, finding himself on the highest level of the Helicarrier—not the top floor, but the deck itself.

The wind was strong, pushed by the rotator blades keeping the carrier in the air, and he shivered on feeling the sudden chill descend upon him. He hesitated, resting his palm against the side of one of the structures containing the blades, and glanced around. The aircraft was massive, big enough that despite being right next to the Quinjet runway, he couldn’t see any of the city beneath.

When he finally spotted White Tiger, she was sitting near the edge, mask in hand. At first, he was apprehensive about her being spotted, but when he got close enough, he realized they were way to high for anyone on the ground to be able to make out her features.

New York was easily a couple thousand feet below them, the tallest buildings looking like toy figurines from the high vantage point. The harbor glittered a dark blue-green underneath them, catching the dying light of the sunshine like little stars contained in the water. It was a breathtaking sight, so beautiful that it washed away Vernon’s initial fear as easily as a wave clearing away dug letters on a sandy beach.

He glanced at Yeji, pressing his teeth against his lower lip. She had her back to him, shoulders tensed—of course she would have heard him approach. Her hair was still up in a ponytail, but swayed lightly with the breeze. Even as he stood behind her, she said nothing, remaining silent and stony as she stared down at the view below.

“It’s nice up here,” he murmured. “Unless you have a crippling fear of heights, that is.”

Silence.

Vernon sighed to himself, slowly taking a seat next to her on the sun-heated deck, and pulled off his mask. The air was cool against his sweat-soaked skin, but did nothing to set his heart at ease. That was the hard part, one he had to figure out himself.

“So, White Tiger, huh?” he asked, scrunching up his nose as he looked at her sideways. Her chin rested on her folded forearms, which were balanced against her knees, legs crossed at the ankles. It should have been a relaxed posture, but her muscles were too tense, standing out like steel cables on her arms and sides. “Do your powers have anything to do with that jade amulet you wear?”

She unfolded herself, unconsciously touching the amulet that hung from one side of her gray belt. It was a vibrant green color, looking fragile like glass, but despite her generally offensive style of fighting, there wasn’t a single scratch on it. “It was my father’s,” she answered dully. “And my grandfather’s before him. The amulet is a family heirloom that passed down to me when the rest of my family died, and with it, the powers it bestows upon the bearer.”

“Oh,” he said, a little surprised. He hadn’t expected her to speak, but she had opened up, despite the still guarded tone of her voice. He pulled his knees up to his chest and looked out at the view, feeling calmer than before, but also a lot more awkward. “Are you afraid of the water?”

She glanced over at him, a confused scowl on her face. “What?”

“The water,” he repeated, indicating the harbor with a tilt of his head. “Aren’t cats supposed to be scared of water or something?”

Her eyes narrowed, but not before he caught the glimmer of amusement in them. “I’m not a cat,” she said. “The amulet gives me the agility and tenacity of a white tiger, but not all its fears. Are you afraid of house lizards, spider boy?”

“Well, one in particular.” He half-smiled. “But he’s back to human now, so I guess not really.”

She gave him a small smile back, one that indicated she got the joke. It wasn’t a big gesture, but it made him feel a bit better—which was funny, since he was the one supposed to be comforting her. He recalled Luce’s words from their earlier conversation. _There’s no harm in being decent._

“Look,” he started, reaching up to rub the side of his neck, “I’m sorry about what I said back there. You said you knew I didn’t like you guys, but that’s not true. It’s just—it’s a sudden change,” he mumbled. “To have a whole team of supers in the school, and so soon after the—incident, it just set me off.”

She said nothing, waiting for him to continue. He shook his head. “You probably don’t know what happened a few weeks ago, and what happened, it’s not your fault. Heck, it doesn’t even _have_ anything to do with you.” He laughed weakly. “The incident that took place, it followed a regular pattern I already should have known. When superhero stuff and real life mix, nothing good comes out of it. I wasn’t prepared for you guys, and I took it badly. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

Yeji hummed. For a few moments, they sat in silence, but it was a comfortable sort of silence. For Vernon, it felt good to get all of that off his chest. It was hard to admit to something because of his pride, but putting it out there made him feel a bit better. No one liked seeing their faults, but to him, it was better than hurting someone he didn’t really want to hurt. In a way, even the superheroes around him were innocent people who could become collateral damage.

“What incident?” she asked.

He glanced at her, a little confused. She stared back at him with her eyebrows arched, as if expecting him to say something. “Sorry, what?”

“I told you about my family, how I came to be in possession of my powers,” she said. “Your turn. What incident were you talking about?”

He bit the inside of his cheek, staring at her thoughtfully. “Do you know Harry Osborn?” he asked at length.

She nodded. “The Goblin—I mean, Norman Osborn’s son.” She gave him a curious look. “Wasn’t he at Midtown with you?”

“Yeah.” He looked away again, studying the lenses of his mask. Speaking about it was difficult, and he wasn’t too sure about instantly opening up about such a horrific incident to someone he had met two days ago, but his instinct told him he could trust White Tiger. Either way, there was no harm in talking about that day, at least not the general aspects of it. “And you probably also know about how Norman Osborn was taken down.”

She nodded again, slower this time, looking thoughtful. “Wasn’t there a bargaining chip of some kind involved?” she asked. “Wait, sorry. I meant a human hostage.”

“Yeah,” Vernon murmured. He hung his head, running his spandex-covered fingers over the cloth of his mask, swallowing hard against the sudden dryness in his throat, but it hurt to do that, like there was a thorn stuck in his flesh. “Long story short, Harry Osborn…well.”

Yeji glanced at him in surprised concern, and he looked away, avoiding her gaze. Now would come the pitying glance, the awkward condolences, the unsure silence. He had had enough of that in the past few weeks.

“I get it,” she said, to his immense surprise. When he looked back at her, her eyes were sad, but there was a firmness beneath them, like stable ground at the bottom of the river. Even if she didn’t quite know all the details, they both spoke the language of loss, and it didn’t need words to be understood.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said.

“I won’t.” She turned her face away, towards the sky, and he followed suit. The silence this time was more than comfortable, it was comforting. “No more details?”

Despite himself, he smiled. “Not yet,” he replied. “You have to get past level twenty first.”

She snorted a laugh. “I don’t really play video games,” she answered. “It’s a little difficult to fit in when you live in the same quarters as a couple of teenage boys, but I can’t do anything about it.”

“Really? You can drop by after school sometimes and I’ll show you.” He grinned, then grimaced. “Or maybe Aunt May can. I’m not the best at them, she kicks my butt on Night game night every time.”

“She sounds amazing already. I can’t wait to meet her,” Yeji said, smiling. “And while we’re on the subject of family—argh, I’m totally going to sound like Agent Fox, but here’s the thing.” She shifted her weight, sitting with her legs crisscrossed. “I know it’s hard to deal with loss, and that it’s different for everybody, but protectors feel guilt on a different level than everybody else—and you can’t carry that kind of weight around with you.”

Vernon picked at a small cut on the leg of his costume. “Agent Fox,” he repeated. “You too, huh?”

Yeji winced. “Therapists aren’t really equipped to deal with our kind of experiences,” she said. “I mean, what do you say to someone who had to physically fight their best friend’s dad because he turned into a genetically enhanced green monster?”

He laughed.

“Agent Fox might not be your best bet, but there are other things you can try,” she continued. “I know you probably don’t want some kind of preachy advice, but for me, being White Tiger helped.” She ran her fingers along the grooves of her amulet again, as if deriving comfort through its touch. “Doing something, even little things that just keep your mind off the past, it helps.”

He thought back to Luce’s words. “Like getting a job?”

Yeji frowned. “I guess,” she said. “If it doesn’t take over your time as Spider-Man, that is.”

“That’s twice in a day someone’s advised me to get a job,” he said. “Maybe I really should go ahead and get one.”

“Maybe you should,” she agreed. “But I have a feeling most normal jobs won’t interest you. If you’re going to work, might as well work on something you’ll enjoy.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, the gears of his brain already having been kicked into action. “I think I already have something in mind.”

* * *

The last time Vernon had met Dr. Curt Connors, it had been as Spider-Man.

It was not an experience he had particularly enjoyed, since it had been one of his bigger fights had had left him with a hairline fracture and a few bruised ribs, holed up in his room for a week to nurse himself. Gym had been worse than usual that Tuesday.

As he pushed through the revolving doors at the entrance of Roxxon Industries, he was already beginning to regret his decision a little bit. Sure, there was no way that Dr. Connors could know his secret alter ego, but the knowledge didn’t help his nervousness one bit.

Plus, with Oscorp pretty much in ruins, the research scientist had shifted his work to a different corporation, and Vernon didn’t know his way around the new building at all. It was a tiny thing to be so worried about, especially for a person who had faced Doc Ock at the age of sixteen, but even the little things seemed big now that he was out job hunting.

Vernon clutched his father’s briefcase tighter, taking his visitor’s pass from the front desk and heading up the escalator to the designated room. Dr. Connors had met Vernon Parker exactly once before, when the latter had shown up at his old laboratory asking about his father, Richard Parker, Connors’s former colleague.

Back then, their conversation had been cut short by a Spidey emergency, and after that the only time he’d been able to see the doctor was while battling him as the Lizard. Vernon had been too afraid to go back afterwards, scared of the decades old formula Connors had developed which turned him into the monster, and what he might discover about his father’s work.

But Dr. Connors had made him a proposal that the boy remembered three months later—that Vernon was always welcome to come work at his lab. Now, the idea of being a simple research assistant didn’t sound very great, especially when the project was so controversial that its funding had been hanging by a thread even at Oscorp, where they weren’t exactly known for their safe experiments. However, biophysics had always been fascinating to him, not to mention the fact that it was his father’s legacy.

He guessed it was about time he went back to claim it.

Vernon stood in front of the door awkwardly, unsure what he was going to say. But he lifted his hand, and he knocked.

“Come in,” came the doctor’s voice from behind the door, and Vernon took a deep breath before pushing the door open and stepping inside.

The room was bigger than he had expected it to be. It definitely wasn’t just an office, with multiple tables and various small instruments and charts held down by random objects acting as paper weights spread across them. Tall shelves lined the wall behind the main desk and the one opposite it, stuffed with old and new volumes. The doctor’s table itself was pushed into a corner to make way for everything else, but despite the packed space, everything was organized. It was a pattern Vernon knew from his own room: order in chaos.

Dr. Connors was standing behind his desk, reading through a paper on a clipboard in his hand. He looked up as Vernon entered, and a range of emotions flashed through his eyes when he saw him—first confusion, then recognition, then fear, then guilt. Finally, the doctor smiled, straightening as he placed the board back on his table.

“Vernon,” he said, and Vernon felt a thrill upon seeing that he remembered his name. “A face I haven’t seen in a long time.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Vernon tried to press his lips into a smile, but it probably looked more like a grimace. “I would have come by earlier, but what with midterms and everything happening in the city…” He hesitated. “I was just a little afraid, I guess.”

“I understand,” Dr. Connors said, and it wasn’t just an empty phrase, like he actually understood Vernon’s fear of facing his father’s past. But then, maybe he did. “I would have liked to see you again after our conversation was cut short, but perhaps a few months’ lapse in between was necessary.”

Vernon thought back to the Lizard incident a couple of months ago, when Dr. Connors had injected himself with an underdeveloped serum, turning himself into a giant lizard. “I read your recent article on the lizard formula,” he said slowly.

The doctor’s hand froze on the table for a moment, but relaxed just as quickly. He looked up at Vernon with a gentle sort of intelligence in his eyes, a look so different from the Lizard’s that he had trouble believing they could be the same person. “Did you, now?” he asked. “And what did you think of it?”

“Genius,” he breathed, and Dr. Connors’s eyes lit up even more. “I looked through my dad’s old papers, and cross-checked the changes with your research.” He opened his mouth and closed it again. _Better get this over with quickly._ “I know this must seem abrupt, but I wanted to ask you something.”

“Go on.” Dr. Connors inclined his head, gesturing at a seat with his good arm. The other one ended up to just above the elbow—a sight that reminded Vernon that it was the doctor himself who had been the first human trial for his cross-species grafting formula.

“The last time we met, you asked me to come work with you in your lab,” Vernon spoke slowly, hesitating between words. “And when I read your paper, I saw that you would continue to research further on the gene splicing and the, uh, the blood-brain barrier and—” He cut himself off, realizing that he had begun to ramble. “I was wondering, after last time, if you could—”

“Take you on in my lab for the research?” Dr. Connors completed his question for him, positively beaming. “Of course! Your father was a genius, and you follow in his stead. It would be a great advantage to have you on the team.” His smile faltered a little. “And then, even after all these years, I owe him my life and its work,” he added in a lower voice. “I’d be glad to have you.”

“Really?” Vernon looked at him with rounded eyes, clutching the case tightly enough that the skin of his knuckles paled. “I—wow. Thanks, Dr. Connors.”

Dr. Connors shook his head. “There will always be a place for Richard Parker’s son at my lab,” he said. “If you’re free, I could show you around the lab now, just so you get the feel of the place. Unless, of course, you’re busy right now, in which case you could swing by later.”

Vernon laughed, relieved and gratified and ridiculously happy. “I have all the time in the world.”

“Great,” Dr. Connors said. “When can you start?”


	6. Disguise

Joshua walked into the cafeteria alert, his head held up and gaze searching for a familiar brunet head amongst the thick crowd in the room. Usually he’d be late, probably held up talking to a teacher or waiting for Vernon, but after the experiences of the past week, he knew better than to wait up for his distracted friend.

“Sorry!” he yelled after almost colliding with a girl and making her spill her banana milk down the front of her shirt. She glared at him as he gripped his tray tighter and winced, quickly shouldering through the group before him to get to his table and as far out of her reach as possible. “Coming through!”

He reached the empty table as the same time Vernon did, both of them putting down their trays at the same moment. Joshua raised his eyebrows, letting a small smile form on his face as he slipped into the seat next to Vernon’s. “The prodigal returns,” he announced. “Where have you been, dude? I’ve barely seen you all week.”

Vernon shrugged, tapping his fingers on the table. He seemed distracted, eyes darting around the cafeteria as if waiting for something, or someone, to appear. Joshua knew that look—it was the one that indicated that something bad was about to happen, most likely within a ten-meter radius. “Um,” the blue-haired boy muttered with a small frown, “I don’t have to worry about that Rhino guy busting down the door, do I?”

“What?” Vernon glanced at him with wide eyes, as if only just having noticed he was here. “Uh, no. At least, I don’t think so.” He smiled sheepishly, hands sliding over the tabletop to grip his tray again, though Joshua guessed it was just to stop them from moving. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

Joshua sighed, placing a fingertip against the bridge of his glasses and sliding them up his sweat-slicked nose. It wasn’t even hot out, but being in a room packed with sweaty, hormonal bodies will do that to you. “I was asking you what you’ve been doing to keep busy in the last few days.”

“Nothing much,” Vernon said, twirling his plastic fork. He looked distracted, maybe a little tired, but despite the dark circles under them, his eyes were alight. “Because of the new team, I have to do all of these S.H.I.E.L.D. training projects with them, and they keep giving up these random hero assignments like stopping robberies and rescuing cats from trees. You know, the usual.” He shrugged. “It’s kind of annoying that I have barely any creative freedom with my fighting these days.”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Joshua quipped. “If you call flying solo _creative freedom.”_

His best friend grinned. “Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you,” he said, suddenly excited as he leaned forward on his elbows, eyes glittering. “I got a job in Dr. Connors’s lab.”

“That biotech guy who worked with your dad?” Joshua raised his eyebrows, looking impressed. “When?”

“Last Tuesday.” Vernon’s eyes had taken on an almost dreamy quality as he talked about his new job. “It’s just the post of research assistant, pretty basic stuff really, but he lets me take part in some of the data collection sometimes. Man, you should look at all the amazing equipment in his lab. He’s got a BOD incubator, an electrophoresis chamber—”

“Vernon.” Both the boys looked up at the source of the voice, which stood before them in the form of Felix Liu (or, as he was better known, Felix _Lee)_. The boy’s eyes glazed over Joshua as if he wasn’t even there before coming to rest on Vernon’s with a kind of communicative intensity. “You’re wanted in the principal’s office.”

Vernon stared at the boy for a few moments, looking confused, and Felix raised his eyebrows, glaring at him meaningfully. Joshua glanced between them, wanting to say something but a little apprehensive of doing so. “The principal’s office?” Vernon echoed, a defiant note in his voice. “Why?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Felix asked, scowling. “Coulson himself stopped me in the hallway, so it must be _urgent._ You should probably go talk to him.”

Something like realization flickered across Vernon’s features. “Oh,” he said. “Oh, right. You’re right.” He got up suddenly, casting an unsure look at Joshua as if he’d just remembered there was a witness to their exchange. He glanced at Felix with a conflicted look in his eye, clutching the back of the chair uncertainly. “Uh, there’s something I should tell you—”

“Tell me later,” Felix cut him off impatiently, waving him away. “Just go.”

Vernon glanced at Joshua again, teeth worrying at his bottom lip. He opened his mouth, looking like he was about to say something, then stopped himself. He shook his head, chest deflating as he let go of a long breath, before turning around and making his way towards the exit.

Joshua kept his eyes on his retreating back as he went, not turning even when he felt Felix pull up a chair opposite him. Only when Vernon finally disappeared behind the double doors did he turn to his food, which lay untouched on his plate. Something was up, and he had a good idea about what it was.

“Aren’t you going to eat that?” Felix asked, making Joshua look up at the sound of his voice. The boy’s cheeks were puffed out, mouth already filled with whatever they were supposed to consume by way of food for lunch. When Joshua didn’t answer, he cocked an eyebrow. “Well?”

“I don’t feel like eating,” the blue-haired boy murmured, but unwrapped his sandwich anyway. The new kids had started eating at his, Luce’s and Vernon’s usual table in the past week, which Joshua was completely okay with—except he usually had at least one of his old friends to keep things from becoming too awkward. Between the three of them, Joshua was probably the one with the worst social skills.

He took a tiny bite of his sandwich, and glanced despairingly at the door, waiting for Luce to show up. Heck, even Yeji or that other guy—Yangyang?—would have been welcome. Felix had always struck him as the silent type, but he didn’t yet know if it was a strong silent or a sensitive silent. Eating this way was awkward, to say the least, but the only topic of conversation Joshua could think of was probably not fit for discussion in public.

 _Ah, to hell with that._ “You’re Iceman, right?”

Felix looked up so quickly Joshua heard something crack in his neck. He felt a sudden, sharp, bite-like pain in the back of his right hand, which had been lying much too close to Felix’s tray. “Ouch!” Joshua pulled back his hand with a hiss, cradling it against his chest. “What the hell was that for?”

“Sorry, I—” Felix stopped with a small scowl. _“Hey._ Don’t go around saying stuff like that!”

“So you _are_ Iceman,” Joshua said. “Can’t really deny it now.”

Felix blushed at the statement. The color that flooded his cheeks was startlingly bright against the pallor of his skin. “Who told you that?” he demanded. “Was it Vernon?”

“No, I kind of figured it out by myself.” He lightly touched the back of his hand again, making sure the feeling in it hadn’t been stopped entirely. “Between three new superheroes showing up with Spider-Man and three new kids dropping right into the middle of the session less than a day apart, it wasn’t hard to guess,” he said. “You were sent here by the biggest super spies in the world and the best disguise they could come up with was hair dye and a last name change?”

Felix didn’t snap at him again, but the look he was giving him was definitely hostile. “You have a better idea?” he countered. “In case you haven’t noticed, no one in the school has realized my identity yet.”

“Except me.”

“Except you,” he added, though a little sourly. “And that’s probably because you already know who Spider-Man is.”

Joshua considered this. “Well, that is true,” he admitted. “But it’s still kind of surprising that none of the kids that go here have figured it out yet.”

“They probably don’t want to believe there’s a mutant in their school,” Felix muttered. Joshua noticed how his face darkened as he continued staring at his food, stabbing the mashed potatoes with his plastic spoon. “People believe what they want to see.”

Joshua studied the boy, noticing the tension in his shoulders and the probably unconscious crease in the middle of his forehead. “Are you…” he started, then hesitated. What was he supposed to say?

Felix waved the half-question away, and spooned in a huge mouthful of his potatoes, indicating that the conversation was over. Joshua took another bite of his sandwich, wondering what was going through the blond’s head. Not having a secret identity, he didn’t know what it would feel like to have a common high school kid figure it out within days of meeting you. Something bad, probably.

There was a metallic _clunk_ as someone placed their tray on the table. Luce swung her bag off her shoulders, dropping it to the floor, and took a seat next to Joshua. “Sorry I’m late, got caught up in a meeting,” she said, seemingly oblivious to the tension at the table. “What’d I miss?”

Joshua cast a furtive glance at Felix, only to find the boy’s eyes already trained on him. He hadn’t noticed before, but Felix’s eyes were brown. Joshua had never taken a close look at Iceman’s eyes, but somehow, he knew the brown eyes were a result of contact lenses.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

* * *

Running in the hallways wasn’t allowed, but when you were going to the principal’s office, Vernon guessed it was an exception.

He sprinted all the way to the room, equal parts concerned and annoyed by the summons. If Coulson had called on him in school, then it was probably something important—but on the other hand, he hadn’t asked for Felix. Maybe it was a specifically Spider-Man related emergency.

When he burst through the door into the office, Coulson was leaning against the side of his desk, arms folded over his chest. The only other person in the room was Yangyang, who was seated on one of the chairs before the principal’s table, picking at the stuffing peeking out of the worn-out arm of the chair.

Vernon let the door shut behind him before stepping in, glancing between the two in confusion. The atmosphere definitely didn’t feel urgent. “Agent—I mean, Principal Coulson,” he said, wincing slightly at his slip-of-the-tongue. “You asked for me?”

“I did.” Coulson uncrossed his arms, placing the heels of his hands against the edge of the table. “Take a seat.”

Vernon crossed the room hesitantly, slowly sitting on the unoccupied chair. “Uh,” he said, glancing at Yangyang’s lounging figure with a frown. “Is this about something important?”

“It is indeed,” the agent confirmed, straightening. “If you consider the Shocker important.”

“Shocker?” Vernon repeated. “Isn’t he in S.H.I.E.L.D. jail or something?”

Yangyang snorted, and Vernon shot him a murderous look. “Unfortunately, no,” Coulson answered. “We’ve been trying to apprehend him, but he’s been laying low for a while.”

“Shocker, laying low?” Vernon raised an eyebrow. “Not something you see every day.”

“Yesterday, he robbed a bank on Madison Avenue,” Coulson continued, ignoring him. “I didn’t call you in then because you had a pop quiz in history going on, but—”

Yangyang groaned. “Seriously? Man, I could have used the distraction.”

The agent gave him a sharp look, before facing Vernon and speaking. “He’s out again today, terrorizing citizens in Central Park,” he said. “Usually, I’d prefer for other professionals to take on him, but orders are orders, and you, Vernon, have the most experience with him and will probably be able to take over him the most quickly.” He looked almost regretful, probably about them having to miss school hours. Damn, he was _really_ getting into his role as the principal. “You are to leave immediately.”

“Wait, what’s he doing in Central Park?” Vernon frowned. “That’s not the most lucrative venture for a small-time villain.”

“Terrorizing citizens.” Coulson raised his eyebrows. “As I said.”

“Terrorizing citizens…?” Vernon muttered, sitting up a little. “That’s strange.”

“What’s up, Parker?” Yangyang asked with a mocking grin, uncrossing his legs and getting to his feet. He stretched, flexing his shoulders. “Disappointed in your little pet project?”

“Shut up, bucket head,” Vernon murmured. “It’s just not his usual style, but I guess he’s branching out.” He pursed his lips. “Still, I can’t imagine why.”

“And _I_ can’t imagine why the two of you would stand around bickering and wasting your time when there’s a dangerous criminal on the loose,” Coulson said firmly, giving them a very teacher-like look. “Get going already.”

Vernon blinked. He glanced at Yangyang, who stood by the door looking at him expectantly, and then at Agent Coulson. “Wait,” he muttered, brow creasing as it slowly dawned on him where this was heading. “What about Tiger and Iceman?”

“They’re not needed for this simple mission,” Coulson said. “I’m sure the two of you can handle this problem by yourselves just fine.”

“Unless you’re scared of old Shocker, that is.” Yangyang gave him a lopsided smirk. “In which case, I’m sure Agent Coulson wouldn’t have a problem packing you an extra pair of underwear when you wet your pants.”

Vernon glared at him, his grip tightening on the armrests as he refused to get up. His gaze swiveled to the agent, eyes going round and pleading. “What about sending me with White Tiger instead?” he asked imploringly. “I’m sure we could take Shocker down more efficiently since we’ve had more time to practice our maneuvers together—”

“Go. Now.” Coulson was definitely not taking no for an answer as he gave him a stern look. Vernon stood up slowly, not taking his eyes off the man, just in case he got a last-minute break, but he was unrelenting. “Today would be good.”

“What are you going to tell your teachers?” Vernon asked desperately as he reluctantly made his way towards the door, where Yangyang was still waiting for him. He gave the boy a disbelieving look, surprised that he was willing to go along with all of this. Their animosity was, on most days, mutual. “We have bio lab later, and we’re both partners, and if I miss this class I might—”

“Don’t worry about that, leave it to me,” Coulson said, now simply looking impatient. “And stop making excuses to get out of the situation. Every little second you waste here doing that means another second of those innocent civilians being in danger. What happened to all your preaching about responsibility?”

Saying this, he pushed the two boys out of his office and shut the door in their face. Vernon stared at it glumly, finally accepting his fate.

“Come on, then, partner,” Yangyang said. He stood next to him with his arms crossed over his chest, grinning like a cat after a catch. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a huge thank-you to everyone who left kudos! i'm really really really grateful for every single one of you who gave this fic a chance, thank you so much <3 also it's my birthday, i feel old LOL. make sure to comment if you liked this chapter <3


	7. Trust Issues

Vernon swung over the busy street that led towards Central Park, disgruntled by the surprise subunit. Nova flew alongside him, just a few feet before him—he could probably fly a lot faster, but Vernon knew he was flying this close to him purposefully, letting him know that Nova would always be faster than Spider-Man.

God, the little things about this kid irritated him even more than the big stuff.

He spotted Shocker through the trees, the lining of his suit glinting like gold in the afternoon sunlight. The villain raised his gauntlets and slammed them into the ground with a yell, making it vibrate with the frequency of his sonic blasts. Vernon flipped in mid-air, perching on the branch of a tree out of his blast radius.

“So what’s the sitch?” Yangyang asked, hovering next to him, and Vernon cast a glance around. _Terrorizing civilians_ seemed like a bit of a stretch since there weren’t really many civilians around, and those that were had managed to find a place that was protected from the blasts. The cops had been driven back by the blasts, and the few shots they took were easily deflected by the energy discharges.

The ground shook with every hit, but since Shocker was on hard-packed earth instead of concrete, most of the force was absorbed. The terrain was cracked in places, deep trenches left in the dry ground from the explosions. The few people in the area had been driven up the bridge, but Vernon didn’t like their chances—Shocker might not have intended to hurt them, but he was getting dangerously close. One misdirected blast was all it would take to topple the side holding up the bridge.

“Stay out of range of the vibro-shock gauntlets,” Vernon told him. It wasn’t the kind of crime that required their immediate, undivided attention, since Shocker didn’t seem to be doing any real damage, but who knew how long that mood would last? “They might look easy to dodge, but they’re actually pretty deadly and have a large discharge radius, so steer clear of them. Try to stay off the ground.”

“And the takedown?” Even though he wasn’t happy about being stuck with Nova on this mission, Vernon was still pleased to see that at least the guy was listening to him.

“I’ll web him up, hang him upside down from a tree or something,” Vernon replied. “You should fly up there first, distract him so I can get up close.”

“Why do that when I can just take him out with one blast?” Nova muttered, and Vernon shot him a dark look. “But I don’t want to get back to school that early, so we’ll do it your way. This guy sure looks like he could use some fun.”

Vernon pursed his lips, not feeling so sure. He wanted to say that it wasn’t like Shocker to behave so erratically, but that would probably just make him sound like an idiot—how was anyone supposed to know what normal behavior was for a criminal?

“Go,” he breathed, and Nova shot from his side like a rocket—a human rocket, as he often liked to describe himself. He was on Shocker in a second, zipping around him like an annoying, oversized fly, getting all up in his personal space and confusing him. Shocker’s face was covered, hiding his expressions, but from the rigid lines of his body Vernon could tell the guy was getting pissed. He took his chance, diving off the branch and executing a low swing worthy of Tarzan, kicking Shocker in the chest with both feet and sending him flying into a tree behind, which cracked and splintered under the blunt force.

“Oh, Herman, Herman,” he tutted, as Shocker righted himself with an angered yell. Vernon moved with the speed and grace of a—well, a spider, dodging a powerful blast from his gauntlets by executing a perfect helical flip. “Haven’t you learned the hard way that fighting back is only going to make it hurt worse?”

“Spider-Man!” Shocker yelled, booting up his gauntlets, which glowed like lamplights from the charge.

“Yes, of course, who else would it be?” he asked, webbing the overhead branches and pulling himself up to avoid the incoming blasts. “Did you really think I was going to leave you here all by yourself?”

“If you’re so smart, you should have known to stay out of my way!” Shocker said, sending a concentrated blast his way. Vernon rolled out of the way, coming up in a crouch.

“I didn’t say I was smart, you did,” he said, flipping back onto his feet. “What’s gotten into you, Herman? I didn’t take you to be the terrorizing type.” He avoided another blast by leaning far right. “Why are you doing this? For funsies?”

He had succeeded in drawing Shocker away from the bridge, but the clearing was too small for Shocker’s blast radius. Vernon couldn’t contain him within the safe zone for long. “Nova!” he yelled. “Get the civilians out of the way! I’ll handle this guy.”

Nova jerked his head into a nod, flying towards the bridge to evacuate the trapped people. Vernon’s spider sense tingled, but he was too late to react—a blast caught him in the chest, sending him flying into the underbrush. He coughed out the air in his lungs, and pushed himself to his feet. _Ow, ow, ow._

“You should know better,” Shocker said. His gauntlets glowed again, and Vernon’s eyes widened under the mask as he raised them both towards him, the light as blinding as direct headlights.

Nova swooped in out of the air, snatching Shocker up like a bird snatching up a worm (or maybe that was a bad analogy).

“Boring!” Nova yelled, carrying Shocker higher up in the air, preparing for a good old drop to let gravity do the rest of the work. Shocker twisted, jamming his fists towards the boy’s chest and sending a shockwave through him. Nova cried out in surprise, going flying through the air in the opposite direction and ending up dropping Shocker, who righted himself by aiming a blast towards the ground at the right angle, giving himself enough of a boost to be able to land on his feet.

Not too helpful, though, because before he had a chance to celebrate the little victory, Spider-Man was upon him, webbing his fists to his chests in a cross like an empty-handed mummy, if wearing highly enhanced vibro-shock gauntlets counted as being empty-handed. Vernon webbed the nearest tree trunk, pulling himself and the incapacitated Shocker along with him by jerking at his webstrings.

“It isn’t like you to behave this way,” he said, pulling himself up to a branch. He webbed Shocker’s body, turning him in the air with the torsion of each pull, until he had him all wrapped up like a caterpillar like a cocoon, leaving only his head out. Vernon lowered himself upside-down to face the man, cocking his head inquisitively. “Aw, come on, you can tell me. I can keep a secret.”

“You’re blind, Spider-Man,” Shocker spat.

Nova reappeared next to him, scowling under the mask. “Come on, web-head,” he said. “Leave the information-extraction to the experts. Bad guys never tattle.”

“Oh, you don’t know about us,” Vernon said, shaking his head. “We go _way_ back.” He leaned closer to Shocker. “Don’t we, Herman?” He chuckled. “Remember the first time I stopped you from robbing a bank? Good times, good times.”

Instead of answering, Shocker thrashed around in the web trap, which was pointless, of course. Vernon sighed, dropping to the ground upright, and looked up at the dangling man who was now writhing like fish bait on a hook.

“Guess you’re not in the mood to talk,” he said, keeping the note of disappointment in his voice. “Maybe the Big House will fix that for you.”

“The Big House?” Nova scoffed. “This guy barely belongs in a regular prison. How long did the fight take? Ten minutes?” He shook his head. “Are all your villains this lame?”

Vernon shot him a look that he obviously couldn’t see through his mask. “You haven’t seen a single good one yet,” he said. “My villains are _dangerous.”_

“Oh, yeah?” Nova barked out a laugh. “Like that one guy with a huge hot glue gun? What was his name, Trapman?”

_“Trapster.”_

Nova snorted. “Yeah. _Real_ dangerous.”

Vernon rolled his eyes. “I’d like to see _you_ handle being stuck to a wall with the same disgusting gunk that’s leaked down your pants,” he said. “It’s not always so much about danger as it is about being able to handle the grossness.”

Nova grinned, obviously not believing him. “Whatever you say.”

“I’m not messing around,” he said seriously. “Can you imagine doing a stakeout mission in the sewer, waiting for a truck-sized human-lizard hybrid to come out? Not everyone has that kind of patience and tolerance.”

“Yeah, because they don’t _need_ to have it,” Nova said. “My villains aren’t geckos.”

Vernon gave up, waiting for the authorities to arrive and pick Shocker up instead of gracing him with an answer. Shocker had gone limp, but remained silent as stone. Vernon regarded him contemplatively, still unconvinced by the tough intimidation act.

Something was definitely up.

* * *

At the end of the team’s usual briefing in the Helicarrier that day, Vernon pulled Nick Fury aside. “Uh, Agent Fury, sir?” he asked in a low voice, casting a precarious glance at his teammates, who were in the middle of leaving. Yeji, last in the line, looked back at him questioningly, but he shook his head minutely. She raised an eyebrow, but left. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead,” the agent said, in the process of shutting down the holographic display system. He looked up when Vernon didn’t answer. “What is it, Spider-Man?”

“This might sound like a stupid question,” he started hesitantly, “but do you know if Norman Osborn is secure?”

Fury gave him a searching look, movements slowing somewhat as he took in the question. “Of course,” he said. “Norman Osborn is nice and locked-up in the Raft.”

“And he hasn’t shown any…Goblin-y tendencies?”

Fury’s curious look intensified. “Not so far, no,” he said. “Look, kid, I’m only telling you this because you put him in there and deserve to know what’s happened to him, but I can’t release any sensitive details about his capture. Just enough that you can sleep tight at night knowing he isn’t breaking out anytime soon.”

“Thanks,” Vernon said half-heartedly. “But I just wanted to know if the OZ levels in his blood were—normal.”

“That’s what his scheduled test runs say,” he replied. “Parker, you don’t need to worry about him anymore. If there are any abnormalities, S.H.I.E.L.D. will take care of them. Rest easy.”

“And if he gets out?”

“Long shot.” Fury leaned against the table, frowning at him. “Kid, is there something you want to tell me?”

Vernon hesitated, thinking back to the Shocker incident. Herman Schultz’s behavior showed all the symptoms of a man under threat from a higher authority, and the last time he’d seen that happen was under Norman Osborn. Any irregularities were to be reported, since the city had only come back to normal recently after repeated attacks from multiple supervillains, but Vernon wasn’t sure if deviant behavior from a low-level criminal counted.

Plus, Fury had only just begun to hand him bigger responsibilities, and he didn’t want to destroy all that buildup by giving him a false lead as a result of Goblin-induced paranoia.

“Nope, just wondering,” he replied, pressing his lips into what he hoped was a believable smile. “You know, one of those things.”

The man gave him an unconvinced look, but let it go. Vernon turned back and exited the briefing room as casually as he could. The doors slid shut behind him as he stepped into the hallway, plunging him in a dimmed lighting. He exhaled, mind buzzing with thoughts.

“Norman Osborn, huh?”

Vernon turned, finding Felix leaning against the wall next to the door. He straightened as Vernon faced him. “Don’t tell me you honestly expected him to believe you,” he said, talking about Fury. “No person asks about their supervillains unless they’re worried about a comeback. What did you see?”

Vernon sighed, realizing there was no point in trying to hide his doubts from Felix. “Nothing substantial,” he answered, starting to walk down the corridor. Felix followed him. “Just some everyday robber acting out.”

“That Shocker guy you and Nova turned in today?” Felix asked, and Vernon nodded. “Why?”

“Scaring civilians for no reason…it’s just not like him,” Vernon said. “He does what he does for money, not just to strike fear into people’s hearts. Well, I guess that’s an added bonus at times,” he added, “but doing that without making money along the way doesn’t seem like something he would do.”

“So you think he was hired to take you out.”

“Not exactly…” Vernon turned the mask over in his hands, thinking. It was hard to put into words, but the sense of oncoming danger was there, like a very general, very muted version of his spider sense. The problem was, he didn’t know how to explain that to Felix. Not everyone understood how it worked. “He seemed kind of reluctant to kill me, too.”

Felix gave him an amused look. “You’re upset because a villain gave you the brush-off?”

“Very funny,” he said, but his heart wasn’t in it. “I kept thinking that was being threatened or something. Now, what _for,_ I couldn’t say, but—”

“I get it. It’s like intuition,” Felix said, and Vernon nodded. “What does that have to do with Norman Osborn?”

“If you’ve seen him in his Goblin form, you’ve probably noticed that he can be very threatening,” he said. “But he couldn’t be behind this, because he’s in a maximum-security prison with zero contact with the outside world.”

“But you think he is.”

“I can’t think of anyone else who’d want to do this, since he’s been the only one who’s ever operated in this particular way. But I guess there’s no shortage of people who want to kill me.”

“So he’s tried to get small-time criminals to kill Spider-Man before,” Felix said. “Doesn’t sound to me like a good judge of strength.”

“To kill Vernon Parker, actually,” Vernon corrected. “He kind of…knows my identity.”

Felix frowned. “He unmasked you?”

Vernon stopped close to the end of the corridor, glancing back to see if there was anyone around, but the place was empty. Fury had probably taken a left. “Do you know how I became Spider-Man?” he asked Felix.

“Didn’t you get bitten by a radioactive spider?”

“It was an Oscorp experiment, bonding OZ to spider DNA,” Vernon said. “One of the test spiders escaped while I was touring the facility with my class, and bit me. The enhanced spider DNA bonded with mine, giving me powers. Except here’s the thing—Norman Osborn knew.”

“He did?”

“Him, and a couple of other scientists working on the OZ formula,” he said. “Figured it out by taking a sample of my blood while I was on watch in the hospital. He took the same formula and bonded it to his own DNA to enhance himself, but it messed with his brain.” Vernon studied a tiny web in the corner of the ceiling. Spiders, even up here in a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier hundreds of feet in the air. “He told me all of this just moments before accidentally killing Harry. Turned himself in when he realized what he had done.”

“Oh.” There was a short, awkward pause. Felix came to stand beside him, following his gaze up to the tiny spiderweb in the corner. “I’m sorry.”

Vernon shook his head, turning away from the web. “It wasn’t your fault.”

They stood in silence for a few moments before Felix spoke up again. “Tell you what,” he said, making Vernon raise his eyebrows. “I’ll ask Yeji to look up both Shocker and that Rhino guy in the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. We’ll go over his record later, see if he has anything to do with Norman Osborn. If something comes up, we’ll report it to Fury. You don’t have that spider intuition for nothing.”

Vernon cracked a smile. “You mean my spider sense.”

“Same difference.” Felix smiled back, but it dropped from his face just as quickly. “Hey, I almost forgot to ask—did you tell that Joshua guy who you _are?”_

Vernon winced, sheepishly massaging the back of his neck. “Maybe,” he said, then added hastily, “But I was going to tell you soon.”

“Never mind that,” Felix muttered. “He figured out our identities already.”

“He told you that?” he asked, trying his hardest to suppress a smile.

“I’m pretty sure there’s some kind of protocol about it,” Felix said, “but I’m not sure. Plus, it’s one of those things you gotta deal with yourself, you know? I’m not great with the whole secret identity thing because Iceman is a public figure, but not that I’m some kind of undercover agent—” He shivered, which was a bit ironic, because Iceman and all. “You know being out could get me killed, right?”

“Because of your supervillains?”

“No, because mutant-haters.” He gave Vernon a meaningful look. “Like that girl Liz Allan in History.”

“Nah, that one’s all bark no bite,” Vernon said. “Besides, Josh isn’t going to tell anybody. He kept my Spider-Man secret for a year and still going strong.”

Felix looked at him curiously. “You trust him that much?”

“I’ve known him for years,” the brunet answered confidently. “I’d trust him with my life.”

“Well, if that’s what you think,” Felix said, “then that’s good enough for me.”


	8. Distance

“Okay, so here’s what I found out about your Rhino guy,” Yeji said, jumping over the side of the rooftop and landing on another, hitting the ground with a roll before coming up on her feet. They were currently involved in a high-speed chase, which meant she had to yell at the top of her voice for Vernon to hear her—not that it mattered a lot. Up here, no one could hear you scream. “He’s Russian. Name’s Alexei Sytsevich.”

“Russian, huh?” Vernon yelled back. He swung over a tall rooftop garden, taking care not to accidentally knock over something he wasn’t supposed to. “Anything that could tie him to Osborn?”

“Not really!” Yeji yelled. “His identity is public, so anyone could get to him, and he must have happened to have been around when he attacked you. But there’s nothing concrete we could go after.”

The two of them were chasing Batroc the Leaper across the top of the buildings, having caught up with him just moments after he robbed a store. A basic assignment, really, but it was still a challenge to apprehend him before he got too far from the crime scene. One of their more casual operations, much like a training session, except this was the real deal.

“Anything of interest?” Vernon asked. They were close to catching their quarry, very close. Batroc wasn’t really that notorious in the underworld, but he was still a menace and technically a criminal. A more notable point of interest were the mechanical leaping legs attached to both his feet which allowed him to jump several feet high in the air, making for a good old-fashioned superhuman chase scene.

“He was experimented on with this gamma radiation technique to give him superhuman strength and durability, but it ended in an accident,” Yeji answered. Her voice, apart from the strain due to the yelling, sounded strangely relaxed for someone who was chasing a guy across the tops of buildings. Even after having time to get used to it, Vernon was still surprised by her resilience. “The suit he was wearing that day—remember how it was made of some kind of self-regenerating polymer? It’s literally stuck to his skin. Can’t get it off him.”

“Must be constipated; it explains the anger issues.”

Just then, Yeji caught up to the Leaper. She sprung off a ledge and onto the top of a water tanker, from where she dived towards the unsuspecting criminal, flattening him to the ground. Vernon swung up to her, landing on the ground next to her. Batroc tried to wiggle away, but Vernon webbed his hands and feet to the rooftop, successfully trapping him. “So,” he said, turning his attention back to Yeji. “Any idea where they’re keeping him?”

“If you’re wondering if he’s being kept anywhere close to Osborn, don’t worry.” She placed her hands on her hips. It looked strangely satisfying, her claws aligned with the gray markings around the waist of her white suit. “Rhino’s placed in the Helicarrier for now, but in a special ward designed specifically for the big guys, though th They have specialists looking into his, er, sticky situation, but he’s on an entirely different level than Norman. And I mean that quite literally.”

He nodded. “Did the files mention _which_ specialists are looking into it?”

“Eez it perhaps—” Batroc started.

Vernon webbed his mouth. “Zip it,” he said.

“No. The only files I could access didn’t have much on him,” Yeji said, sounding genuinely sorry. “There was other stuff, like his eye color and his blood type, but I don’t think you’d be very interested in all of that.”

“You think right.”

“There might be more details in the confidential reports coming in from the Helicarrier holder itself, but getting them would be a lot of trouble,” she said. “Although if you really want them—”

“No, it doesn’t matter,” Vernon said, shaking his head. “Thanks for digging up the rest, though. I owe you one.”

“Consider it early payback for when your Aunt May teaches me how to beat your ass at video games.” He couldn’t see her face, but he sensed that underneath the mask, she was smiling.

“Hey, that’s an Aunt May thing, not a me thing,” he said, then paused, hesitating. There was something else he had wanted to ask her, but he didn’t know if he really wanted to follow through with it. “Hey, Tiger…” he trailed off. “Actually, never mind.”

“No, go ahead,” she said. “Unless you’d rather not.”

He shook his head slightly. “It’s not like that,” he said. “This might sound kind of intrusive, but do you know the deal with Fe—Iceman?” he asked. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s great and everything, but with all the brooding and the secrecy, I’m just a little—” He scrunched up his nose. “That _does_ sound intrusive.”

“It does,” she agreed, but it sounded amused. “Look, I’d tell you. I really would. But it’s something I feel he should tell you yourself, you know? If and when he’s comfortable talking to you about it.”

“Did he tell you?”

“No, I just kind of figured it out.” She sounded a little sheepish. “And maybe I got it out of one of the IT guys.”

He looked at her, amused. “They have IT guys at S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Well, I guess they’re not IT guys in the strictest sense,” she mused. “There’s a hierarchy of ranks even within the record regulators, so it’s a little hard to explain. Not that it really matters, anyway.”

“It would be kind of cool if S.H.I.E.L.D. needed IT guys,” Vernon said, looking down at Batroc, except he wasn’t really looking _at_ him, but _through_ him. “Unrealistic, though.”

Yeji shook her head slightly, like she was unable to believe they were having this conversation. Or maybe he was just projecting his own amused disbelief onto her. But he noticed the tenseness of her shoulders and she let her arms fall to her sides, as if she was holding in a laugh. It was one of those conversations that took a turn that didn’t even have to be funny to make you laugh.

“Good talk,” she said, and this time he could actually hear the smile in her voice. “Now let’s get this guy back to the carrier.”

* * *

Luce knew something was up.

She had known this for a while now—about a year, in fact. She had only just started to suspect it when Vernon had changed, and Joshua had gotten secretive, and Harry had first started floating away. It had come one after the other, like the three of them were carrying out parts in a play and she was in the audience, watching but unable to take part. Change, and secrecy, and distance.

She liked distance. Luce had always _been_ distant, someone who stood in the crowd and yet apart from it, unwelcome and unsettling for most around her. Eccentric, some called her, or strange, or downright creepy. It never really mattered to her, because for her, it had always been just the four of them—Vernon, Joshua, Harry and her—and even after everything that had happened, they still felt like four. Three people with a ghost in between, still shaking his head at their dumb jokes and still taking the best seat in the Parker living room when they had movie night.

Looking back, she realized that the cracks in their relationship had first appeared a year ago. Often, after Harry died, she thought about how they had collectively ignored those fractures in their friendship, that had come in the form of change and secrets and distance.

The first to change had been Vernon, of course—trading his glasses for unexplained bruises, his mysterious disappearances poorly covered up and rarely questioned. Then Joshua—the two of them with their heads together in the hallways, shooting each other knowing looks that shut everyone out. It felt like it was just the two of them sometimes, Luce and Harry often forgotten during their closed conversations. That was probably what had pushed them together, but now that Harry was gone, she was left alone. Still on the outside, trying to look in, but in vain.

She knew she couldn’t blame Vernon and Joshua for it, she had started to blend into the background a little more with every passing day. Catching one without the other was hard, so at some point she stopped trying, letting them find her whenever they felt like it. Sometimes she felt like a ghost, too, lurking in a ruined castle, only seen when a wanderer needed shelter.

Now, it was all happening again. The arrival of the new kids had seemed like a minor disturbance at first, like a tiny cloud on the wide horizon, but Vernon had warmed up to them surprisingly quickly after his initial coldness. It wasn’t that Luce didn’t like them—after all, she had been the one to initiate first contact—but she had still been taken aback by how quickly they had become a part of their little group of three (and a dead boy, but he didn’t take up seats anymore).

Except they didn’t feel like it. Not to her, and probably not to Joshua either, whom she had seen watch the new trio with lingering looks when he thought she wasn’t looking.

She was a little surprised by her own reserve, because the arrival of more people should have been a good sign. More people, even numbers, _pairs_ , so she wouldn’t be a third wheel anymore. But it hadn’t worked out that way—she was still stuck outside, but this time Joshua was stuck with her.

It was hard not to be even a little mournful.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she called as Vernon walked past her in the school hallway after fifth period, looking distracted as he usually did these days. He turned, surprised, as if he hadn’t even noticed her there.

“Me?” he asked, looking confused, and she sighed internally. On the outside, she simply shook her head as if in amused exasperation, reaching into her bag and taking out a spiral notebook.

“Notes. From Physics.” She handed it to him, and he stared at the cover for a dazed little moment before looking back up at her. “You missed another class today.”

“Right,” he muttered, giving her a grateful smile. Fifteen seconds had passed already, about five seconds less than the longest conversation they had held in two weeks. He probably hadn’t even realized. “Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, meaning it. No point in moping after something that hadn’t been for months. She leaned against the locker door and folded her arms across her chest. The zips along the cuffs of her jacket pulled against the leather. “Going somewhere?”

“Not really.” He shrugged. The smile was still on his face, that stupidly delightful half-smile that still felt like it was behind a glass wall. “Are you?”

 _Am I ever?_ She shook her head. “Where did you go?” she asked instead of answering his question.

He frowned. “Where did I go…when?”

“During physics,” she clarified. “You’ve been disappearing a lot lately.”

“Oh, you know…” he started, trying hard to keep his voice casual. “Places.”

It was hard not to smile. “Like?”

“The principal’s office,” he said, sounding a little disappointed.

“The new guy?” Luce raised her eyebrows. “Did you do something to piss him off? Get a low grade?”

“Of _course_ not,” Vernon said indignantly. “My scores are perfect.”

“I know. The rest of us on the curve are suffering because of it.”

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry in the least. Instead, there was a small smile on his face that looked suspiciously like a smirk.

Almost a minute now. Luce let the back of her head hit the locker door, finally letting herself believe that he wasn’t going anywhere, not this time around. The feeling that came with it was so warm and delicious that it spread inside her chest like hot water, reaching her toes and fingers and the tip of her nose. “You’re not sorry,” she said with a smile, though she didn’t really mind. “Are we still on for Friday?”

Now Vernon’s smirk dropped, replaced by a split-second look of horror. “Friday?” he echoed. “This is going to sound bad, but I don’t—”

“Movie night,” she supplied. “And don’t worry, I didn’t expect you to remember. The last time we talked about that was a while ago, anyway.”

Movie night, or game night, was their irregular childhood tradition that had become increasingly infrequent over the past few years, but particularly so in the last year. Even then, they’d never gone this long without getting together at least once. The last time they’d done something like that together, it had been almost two months ago, when they had still been four.

When Luce finally mentioned it, she felt strange thinking about the prospect of movie night with only three people. It felt odd. Unnatural. Three felt like the wrong number, like fates and the prongs of a pitchfork. Too little.

“Tell you what,” she said, pulling herself out of her thoughts with difficulty. She did that too much, lose herself in her memories or some random vein of thought and manage to completely detach herself from the world around her. It got harder and harder every time, and sometimes she wondered if one day she was just going to be trapped in her own mind.

“What?” Vernon asked. He had that distracted look on his face again, his posture jumpy like there was extra energy wrapped into his body.

“Why don’t you bring Yeji and the others along this time?” she suggested. Six wasn’t that great of a number either, but it was definitely better than three. And maybe this way she’d be able to get to know the others a little better, pull herself back to reality. “I’m sure they’d like to. And that way, it’ll be an even team.”

“Not if May decides to join in again.”

She smiled. “Then maybe I’ll bring Hairball.”

He groaned. “Oh, no, not Hairball,” he said, eyes refocusing on her face. There was such a vibrant intensity in his gaze that it made her want to stand up straighter. Then he smiled, and she actually had to stand up straight. “You sure, though?”

Of course he would ask her. Vernon Parker, despite all his bodily changes, was still the same guy from fourth grade who always let her have the rest of his lunch—if he managed to keep it from Flash. Luce was almost tempted to reconsider, but she saw the earnest look on his face, the slight arch of his eyebrows, and swallowed the words that welled up in her throat.

“Of course,” she said. “Three’s already a crowd, so we might as well have a whole party.”

“A party, huh?” He winced. “That reminds me. Food.”

“We’ll order from Larry’s.”

“I’ll have to decide if they deserve it yet,” he joked. At least, she _thought_ he was joking. “See you on Friday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, man, thank you guys for over a hundred notes! i know it doesn't seem like much but i'm so, so happy and grateful, thank you so much for giving this story a chance <3 hopefully the rest of it is up to your expectations!


	9. Scientific Inspiration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter frames the base of one of the most important arcs of the story, BUT it's steeped in the concepts of genetic engineering, and i am obviously no genetic engineer (yet). so...let's hope it makes sense. fingers crossed.

Vernon was still thinking about Luce’s offer when he got to work later that day.

Normally, he would have tried to keep his head clear during his work, but since all he had to do that day was log data entries, it didn’t really matter. Doc hadn’t come back to the lab yet, so it was just him and the janitor, but from the open holograph display on his table, Vernon figured he’d be back pretty soon. Despite the state of his office, the doctor didn’t like messes, especially not in his workplace.

He hadn’t expected Luce to even consider inviting the others, even though she had been friendly with them. Movie night was something that belonged to just the four—three—of them, something sacred and untouched by outsiders. The thing that had surprised him even more was his own willingness. For someone who had been so acutely ticked off by their unannounced arrival, he sure had warmed up to his new teammates quickly.

Vernon was only a few entries in when Dr. Connors entered the lab, holding a cup of steaming coffee from the cafeteria. He smiled at Vernon when he came in, not bothering to glance at the screen to check what he was doing before making his way over to the work table. One of the things Vernon liked the most about this place was that despite being nothing more than a research assistant, he was still allowed to help out in more impactful ways than simply entering and saving data.

“You’re here early,” Dr. Connors said, setting down the Styrofoam cup on his table. He looked tired, Vernon noticed, probably why he had bought that cafeteria coffee despite it being a thick, dark color and tasting like tar. There were dark circles under his blue eyes, and his usually neatly combed brown hair was slightly disheveled.

“I came here directly after school was over,” Vernon said. “Figured I’d save a lot more time that way, and I don’t really have much left to do.”

“Hm?” The scientist faced the holographic model, hitting a few keys on the pad below it. His movements were listless, but his shoulders were still tense. _Reminds me of seniors before finals,_ Vernon thought. It wasn’t exhaustion like he had assumed, but stress. “Then perhaps you’d like to help me out here.”

“Really?” Vernon tried to keep the excitement out of his voice, but failed. Probably for the better, because it sparked a small smile on Dr. Connors’s face. “What are you working on right now?”

He didn’t get an answer for a long moment. Vernon spun in his chair and pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the remains of exhaustion weighing his body down as he made his way over to the doctor’s table.

“It’s something your father and I were working on before…before this project was abandoned, almost a decade ago,” Dr. Connors said. He was looking at the display with a different kind of intensity in his eyes, like it was something to be defeated rather than discovered. “When I lost your father, I gave up all hope of ever getting back to it, but after all my recent failures, I think I need to revisit my roots.”

Vernon pursed his lips at _failures,_ but said nothing. The hologram looked like a DNA strand—a double helix blown to the size of a poster tube. It shone with a dull blue light, lighting up Dr. Connor’s features, illuminating the creases around his mouth and eyes that Vernon wasn’t sure had been there before. Standing next to him made his own tiredness feel like a minor inconvenience.

“This was your father’s brainchild, after all,” the man said, still staring at the display. “A completely independent protoplasmic model based on the body’s own genetic edifice built to fortify the weaker structure of a sick body.”

“A protoplasmic model?” Vernon’s eyes widened. “I thought it was supposed to be controlled AI, like nanobots or something.”

“Imagine that, except a sentient being with the ability to detect and eradicate weaknesses in the body on its own, without any direction,” Dr. Connors said. “Something to cure everything—the right combinations of proteins able to use the body’s own natural resources to fight any infection, overcoming the problem of grafting and able to treat everything from neural atrophy to genetic diseases to cancer, contained in a small tubule.” His eyes shone. “The perfect cure.”

 _The perfect cure._ Vernon glanced back at the holographic model, now seeing the inconsistencies in its structure when compared to normal human DNA. The idea was intoxicating and exhilarating, made even more amazing by the fact that it had been proposed by his father. It made his chest ache with longing, thinking of the possibilities of fulfillment if his father had been alive still—not just for the experiment, but for Vernon himself.

“He was way ahead of his time, Richard Parker—in that sense, you are a lot like him,” Dr. Connors murmured in a low, wistful voice, as if speaking to himself. “It had become almost impossible for us to receive any support or funding for our project, because of how wildly imaginative it was. We were ridiculed, discredited, called mad for our ideas before we finally got the deal with Oscorp. We had worked on the cure for so long, and just a couple of days before the deal’s signing, your father called me one night, sounding excited about a fresh prospect.” He shook his head. “But then…”

He didn’t need to complete his sentence. Vernon caught the drift of it, and turned away to hide the pained expression brought onto his face by the flood of emotions. He didn’t know if he felt good about being so close to his father’s work, or bad about being so far away from his father himself. Even the mere presence of his old colleague, still alive while he wasn’t, seemed to taunt Vernon.

 _Snap out of it,_ he told himself firmly. His father’s death hadn’t been Dr. Connors’s fault—he knew that, but still had to avoid even thinking of that idea, because once the seeds had been planted in his brain, Vernon knew he wouldn’t be able to work with Dr. Connors in harmony. Plus, watching him talk about the work he and his dad had done together, no one could say that the scientist didn’t care about his former partner.

“What did he discover?” Vernon prompted.

Dr. Connors’s eyes turned sad. “I never did get to find out,” he said. “Just two days after the call, he was finally going to come back to the state to share his discoveries with me, so we could compare notes and build on what was lacking. The first step to phase two, he called it.” His jaw tightened. “And just when we thought something was going to go right for once…”

Vernon hung his head. Maybe knowing his father had been on the verge of a breakthrough should have made him feel better about his achievements, but he only thing that Vernon could think about was what all the world had lost when he had lost his dad. A revolution in medicine. A father. He was almost a little uneasy thinking about which kind of loss affected him more. The world could have been a much better place, but all Vernon wanted was his dad back.

“I’ve been unfair to you, Vernon,” Dr. Connors said, breaking him out of his reverie. He straightened while keeping his eyes fixed on the DNA hologram, then faced Vernon with a sad look. “You should have had someone to help you come to terms with your father’s death, someone who could have told you about his great ideas and even greater work. I shouldn’t have left you alone to deal with everything, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to…”

His voice had lowered with every syllable until he trailed off, making Vernon think that his voice had finally become too small for anyone to hear. Vernon swallowed, unable to think of anything to say. He was usually good at talking to people, even heart-to-hearts, but when the subject touched his obscure past, words failed him.

“I understand,” he said, the first words that came to his blank mind. He tried for a reassuring smile, unsure of what the result actually looked like. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for it. And anyway, I am here now.”

Dr. Connors smiled a little. “That, you are,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been doing your genius intellect a great injustice by assigning you all these menial tasks.”

“Hey, someone’s gotta do the menial tasks, right?” He smiled back. “My experience with research is next to nothing compared to that of the other people in this lab, so I’m fine with where I am. And not all the tasks are exactly menial.”

“Still.” The man sighed. “Since it was your father’s genius that came up with this idea, it feels only right to have you develop it further—or at least play a role in its creation.”

“I’m here whenever you need me,” Vernon said, glad about the lightening of the atmosphere. He wasn’t sure how much more of that weight he could have taken. He cocked his head, studying the listed proteins. “What made you want to work on this ‘cure’ again after so long?”

“A lot of different reasons,” the scientist said. “I think I had been avoiding this project for so long because I couldn’t bear to continue it without Richard by my side, but meeting you, his son, and having you take up a position in my lab felt like a sign.” He gave the boy a sideways smile. “And from a scientific viewpoint—before this, I’d been working on a different kind of cure, a serum with a principle based in cross-species genetics. It was supposed to be give a person the ability to regenerate lost limbs like a lizard, but the premature human trials went off the rails.”

Vernon nodded, keeping his mouth clamped shut. “I see,” he said, not wanting to bring up the Lizard incident unless he was sure Dr. Connors was ready to address it.

“However, after someone helped… _fix_ the problem by making an anti-serum, the new formula for it gave me an idea,” the man continued. “Scientific inspiration, I guess you could call it. There’s a lot to be done, but I still have the anti-serum here in the lab, and have been studying it for over a month now.”

The gears had already begun turning in Vernon’s head. He had been the one to create the anti-serum as Spider-Man, and no one knew the methodology better than the original creator. Most of it had stemmed from the original Lizard formula, and with a bit of recalibration and measured reversal, the formula had worked. _That makes me wonder…_

“Hey, doc,” he murmured, brow pinched into a thoughtful frown, “if you had a sample of perfectly bonded human and non-human cell structure, do you think you would be able to mimic it and engineer a matching structure for the cure?”

The man frowned. “How do you mean?”

“I mean…” Vernon hesitated. Because of the OZ formula transferred into his blood by the spider bite, his DNA was perfectly bonded to spider DNA, which gave him what they called in post-human-speak a ‘healing factor’. It wasn’t as effective as Wolverine’s, but it was still something—and it was based on the same principle as the cure. Like the OZ formula helped his body develop a natural cure for anything he could be hit by—be it a paper cut or a head wound—by using its own resources.

The only difference was that it heightened his facilities by combining human abilities with spider abilities, which gave him things like his spider sense. However, if Vernon could use his own blood to develop a kind of skeletal structure for the cure. If it did work, it would only work on enhanced spider/human DNA, but at least then he’d have a start. The possibilities after that were endless.

“If there already existed a perfect sample of blood which had an in-built system like the cure,” Vernon said, trying not to give away too many details.

“Like mutant DNA?” Dr. Connors asked. “They have a completely different genetic structure in place, though, Vernon. They have the X-Gene. Their nucleotide sequence itself is mutated.”

“No, not like that,” Vernon said. “Like _human_ DNA, just…enhanced. Bonded with something like the cure, just not—not _living.”_

Dr. Connors raised his eyebrows. “Well, having a perfect sample would reduce the needed brainwork to a tenth,” he said. “But you couldn’t acquire a sample like that, because, well, it exists only in theory.”

“Right,” Vernon muttered, but already the beginnings of a smile had started to curve his lips. “Only in theory.”

* * *

Vernon’s mind was buzzing with so much excitement from his idea for the cure that even web-slinging hadn’t been able to distract him from it.

He and the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. team had spent the evening scouring the city for any signs of something that could substantiate Vernon’s theory, but had come up with nothing except a few petty criminals, who had been easily stopped. The other three had left early, telling him to use their new communication devices (which looked an awful lot like kitschy wrist bands, except for the fact that they could turn invisible) if anything came up.

Nothing did.

It was nine p.m. and Vernon had still not changed out of his Spidey suit, spending the free hour to swing around the city and try and clear his head. Too much had happened in one day, and his mood was seesawing between elation at his new project and trepidation because of the dreaded return of movie night. Funny that a high school hangout was a source of more nervousness for him than trying to imitate his own radioactive blood sample to finish his dad’s decades old design.

 _When I put it like that, it sounds even more absurd,_ he thought, scrolling through the usual evening homework-help texts on his phone as he waited in line to buy eggs and a carton of milk at the not-so-local grocery store. Even Spider-Man had to obey queues when he was out doing chores for Aunt May.

He paid for the eggs and milk without the tattooed cashier giving him a second glance, and stepped out into the street with the bags. Aunt May wouldn’t be back until ten; he had about an hour to kill until curfew, but he wanted to get home early to talk to her about movie night (yet another reaction to dread) and hopefully study his spidery OZ-bonded radioactive blood under the lens of his old microscope that Uncle Ben had gotten him over a year ago.

“Yo, Spidey!”

Vernon looked up to see a chubby, tanned guy in his late twenties beaming at him like an old friend as he jogged up to meet him. “Hey, I remember you,” he said, pointing at the guy. “You’re uhhh…” He squinted at him, trying to remember when he’d last seen him. “That pizza delivery guy who almost got abducted by aliens!”

“That’s me! Paulo!” the guy exclaimed, his wide smile widening even more upon being recognized. “You saved me from those killer robot aliens last month, remember? And I promised you free pizza in case you ever needed it,” he added. “How’s it going?”

“As usual.” He raised the bag containing the groceries he’d just bought.

“Running errands when you get a break from crime-fighting, eh?” Paulo asked, giving his thick dark curls a shake. His smile refused to dim even a bit, like someone had switched on a light bulb with a permanent power source. “Keeps the superheroes humble.”

“Tell that to Captain America.” Vernon checked the comm device on his wrist, almost groaning out loud when he saw it was almost half past nine already. “Great. Uh, Paulo, I’ll have to catch you later. It’s late, and I gotta get back well before curfew in case there are delays on the way.”

“Of course! Go do your Spider-Man thing.” Paulo lifted his hands, mimicking the _thwip-thwip_ gesture of shooting webs, and grinned. “See you later, Spidey!” he called out from behind him as Vernon swung himself up to a lamppost before launching himself into the air. “Remember the offer with the free pizzas still stands!”

“I will!” Vernon yelled back as he swung away. And he wasn’t just saying that, either—free pizzas were free pizzas.

He had to change in an alleyway again, but thankfully this time it didn’t have an open dumpster or smell like someone had thrown out a decayed cheese slab in the trash. By the time he got back home, Aunt May was already back, as indicated by the lights in the kitchen. _Just perfect,_ he thought miserably, as he unlocked the front door with his spare key and trudged into the hallway.

“Vernon! You’re back early,” a voice yelled from the kitchen when she heard the door shut behind him. A woman with short silver hair, clad in a comfortable t-shirt and yoga pants came out into the living room as he entered it, wiping her hands with a hand towel. “Did you get the milk and eggs like I asked you to?” Aunt May asked.

 _For an older lady, she sure has great hearing._ “Yep,” he said, swinging his bag off his shoulders and unzipping it, internally praying he hadn’t squashed the milk carton from all his swinging like last time. Thankfully, they were undamaged. “Did you come back from yoga classes early?”

“Oh, Denise pulled a muscle in her back, poor thing,” May said. “I offered to bring her back home, but she refused to let me ice it for her, saying she’d get Mac to do it instead.” She disappeared into the kitchen once again, coming out without the hand towel this time. “Put the groceries in the fridge, won’t you?”

For an older lady, Aunt May also had a lot of things going for her. Yoga classes on Monday-alternating weekdays, squash sessions over the weekend, classes for baking and music and whatnot—she might even have been busier than Vernon himself.

“Will do,” he said, obeying. His mind was still swimming with all the older thoughts, but now that he was standing right in front of Aunt May, the worry about movie night had pushed itself to the forefront, demanding all of his nervous attention.

He stood at the fridge even after closing the door, chewing his lip and wondering how to bring it up. Words really had failed him today. “Aunt May?” he ventured, unable to keep the hint of nerves from his voice. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“What is it, honey?” she asked, poking her head out of the kitchen. Around her waist was an apron that said _Don’t Kiss the Cook_. “Vernon?”

He kissed his teeth, teetering back and forth on the balls of his feet. “It’s about movie night.”

She stilled. “What about movie night?”

 _Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,_ Vernon thought, pursing his lips. Aunt May hadn’t exactly been close with the Osborns, but he knew she had cared about Harry in her own way, the same way she cared about any neglected kid that Vernon brought home like an abandoned cat. She gave them as much comfort as she could, tried to give them the family they never really had, even if she knew she couldn’t completely replace them. It had happened before: Harry, and Luce— _and now,_ Vernon thought with a little sigh, _maybe even the team._

“Luce asked me to ask you if you were okay with us doing movie night this weekend,” he said slowly. “And there are these new kids, and she told me to ask them too, but if you’re busy we can always—”

“Vernon!” Aunt May smiled widely, coming out of the kitchen to rest her hands on his shoulders and give them a big squeeze. “Of course I’m okay with it! Oh, you don’t know how I wished you kids would do one of those again, I’m sure that’s what Harry would have wanted too.” She gave him a motherly smile, one that was soft and sad at the same time. “I’ll leave the house to you kids that day.”

“Oh, no, Aunt May, that’s not necessary—” he started, but she cut him off with a wave of her hand.

“Don’t be so formal with me, kiddo,” she said. “I know movie night means a lot to you, and if you have new friends coming over, I’m sure you don’t want a chaperone around.” She raised her eyebrows. “Although I _would_ like to meet them before I go out.”

Vernon sighed, but there was a tiny smile on his face. “God, you’re the best.”

“And don’t you forget it.” She winked. “Besides, even an old woman like me needs to go out with her friends every once in a while, too. This might just turn out to be a good break for both of us.”

He nodded, feeling a welling of emotion in his chest that wouldn’t go down no matter how much he tried to push it away. _One less thing to worry about,_ he thought half-heartedly, trying not to think about how Aunt May’s agreement meant movie night was on, which had the potential to be an even more worrying prospect. “I hope so.”


	10. Bad Manners

“And all of this is on Friday?” Yangyang asked.

“Yeah,” Vernon said, webbing a drone and swinging it in a circular motion, sending it flying towards Yeji. “Tiger, sending a confused customer your way!”

“On it!” she yelled. She somersaulted sidelong over a mound of robot wreckage, launching herself towards the drone with her claws extended. They sliced through the metal like a knife through butter, and she landed on all fours, seconds before the drone fell to the ground in ribbons. “Cake.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything else from you,” Felix said. He was high above them in full mutant form, gliding down an icy slide and flash-freezing a laser every time an unfortunate red dot appeared on his skin. “Shouldn’t we be done yet?”

“We should,” Vernon said. An inactive drone hung high above him in the training chamber, its red eye dark. He frowned up at it, noticing his spider sense wasn’t going crazy despite its close proximity. “Hey, is there something wrong with this one?”

“What?” Yeji glanced up at the drone after demolishing another. Her claws, which had retracted, slowly extended to their full two-and-a-half-inch length again. “Nova, you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Second wave,” Nova said, like it was some kind of shared joke between them. “You got this?”

“I got this,” she said. Vernon frowned, glancing between the two of them, and the moment he looked away from the drone its eye blazed red, and four small spike-like blades extended from its sides. Vernon’s spider sense tingled, and he spun towards the drone, which charged through the air, its blades aimed straight at his face.

“Move!” Yeji called out from behind him. She lunged past him towards the drone, her claws narrowly avoiding slashing through the front of Vernon’s costume as he leaned back in alarm.

“A little too close for comfort,” he muttered, as her claws stabbed into the drone. She brought it down to the floor, crushing it under her knee, where it crackled and sputtered for a few seconds before finally dying.

“Sorry,” she said unapologetically, getting to her feet.

“No time to apologize,” Vernon said, pointing at the ceiling, where sections of the wall opened up to let in another wave of drones, this time with each of them armed with long metal spikes that looked like they could break through bone.

“That looks unsafe,” Nova observed, zig-zagging between the drones and blasting the ones that got in his way. “Any of this look kinda unsafe to you guys?”

“Of course not,” Vernon muttered, voice laced with sarcasm, cutting through the air between two of them and webbing them in midair before slamming them together. “It looks just dandy.”

“One of these days, one of us is gonna get killed, and Fury’ll have a bunch of angry adults to answer to,” Felix said, skewering a drone with a meter-long spire of ice.

“He’ll probably get away with it, too,” Vernon said. “You think no kid’s ever hurt himself fighting one of these? Like, jeez.” He punched through a drone. “And he’s still walking free.”

“Guys,” Yeji snapped, kicking a bot through the air and sending it flying into a wall like a pro soccer player. _“Focus.”_

“I think that was the last of them,” Felix said, lowering himself to the floor. The ice receded from his face, leaving behind slightly pinked skin.

“Alright, now that that’s done, _explain,”_ Yeji said, facing Vernon with her arms crossed over her chest. “You’re having some kind of house party? I didn’t take you to be the partying type.”

“Not house party, _movie night,”_ Vernon corrected. “It’s this thing we used to do back when—it’s this thing,” he repeated uselessly, rubbing the back of his covered neck. “Remember when I told you about Parker Game night? Sometimes we’d play those old one-on-one combat video games and Aunt May would join in and kick our collective ass.”

Felix raised a dyed eyebrow (dedication) and shook out his arms. “And you want us to come over? I thought it was like a private ceremony kind of thing.”

“No, it’s just among…friends.” Vernon sighed in frustration, regretting agreeing to Luce’s idea. Judging from the looks on their faces, they were definitely enjoying his discomfort. “Look, it wasn’t my idea, alright?”

“Admit it, you love us,” Yeji said with a disturbingly feline smile.

“Wait, so it was _Luce’s_ idea to invite us, huh?” Yangyang grinned.

Vernon’s eyes narrowed beneath the mask, an inexplicable hot feeling rising beneath his sternum. “You don’t know that.”

“Well, it definitely wasn’t your blueberry friend,” Felix said. He looked thoughtful, staring down at his arms. Vernon still wasn’t sure what was up with his leaving the X-Men, but he figured it was a sensitive topic, and the boy often spaced out after their training sessions. Vernon wondered if they reminded him of the Xavier Institute.

“You don’t know that either,” he said.

Felix fixed him with a self-assured look in his eye. “I think I do.”

Vernon exhaled through his teeth, turning away from the trio and picking his way out through the wreckage of machine parts on the floor, studying the wiring peeking out from within some of the metal shells. “Fine, it was her idea,” he admitted. “But you don’t have to come or anything. It’s your decision.”

“But do _you_ want us to?” Vernon turned, finding Yeji looking straight at him. He gulped, thankful for the mask covering his expression.

“I…” The other two had begun to stare too, Nova with a cocky smirk peeking out from under his helmet. Vernon scowled. “I don’t see how that changes anything.”

“It’s at your house, right?” Felix asked. He was the least nosy of the three, so it was surprising to hear him speak up like this. Then Vernon remembered him cornering him outside the briefing room and thought, _or maybe not so much._ “Do you want us to come or are you just relaying Lucy’s message?”

“I was just warning you ahead of time,” he said defensively. “She’s gonna tell you herself anyway.” Then he crossed his arms over his chest, covering the spider logo. “It’s just a movie—I don’t see why you guys are getting to worked up over it.”

“Yeah, Parker, it’s just a movie,” Nova mocked, floating a few inches off the ground, a smile tilted sideways on his face. “Just answer the question.”

He rolled his eyes, turning to kick aside a broken drone on the floor. “This is bullying.”

“Vernon…” Yeji said.

“Okay, maybe,” he said. Then he whirled around, pointing at them accusatorily. “But I don’t want to hear _a single word_ out of any of you about it.”

Felix laughed. Yeji and Yangyang shared a smug high-five behind his back. “You really are warming up to us,” Felix said.

“Whatever,” Vernon mumbled. “Oh, and when you get to my house, _behave._ Aunt May wants to meet you, so I want each and every one of you to be on your best behavior. If I hear even a peep out of you about a S.H.I.E.L.D.-sanctioned mission or something, I will _personally_ throw you out.”

“Don’t worry, web-head,” Yangyang said, still grinning a shit-eating grin, “we’ll behave.”

* * *

Needless to say, they did not behave.

Yangyang showed up almost half an hour behind schedule, unable to pull the training card because Felix and Yeji had appeared even earlier than the appointed time. He almost slipped up about six different times in front of Aunt May, who didn’t miss the sharp looks his three other teammates shot his way. She gave Vernon a meaningful look that said _we’ll talk about this later_ before getting to the door.

“I’ve left you kids enough food to last through the night, but since your parents expect you to be home before the morning, make sure you don’t stay past your curfews,” she told the party of six that had gathered at the door to bid her goodbye. “I’ll be back before midnight at most, so make sure not to set the house on fire while I’m gone.”

“C’mon, Aunt May, that was _one time,”_ Joshua mumbled in protest. The woman threw him a stern yet playful look.

 _What’s that about?_ Yeji mouthed at Vernon, who winced, and shook his head like _don’t ask._ “Don’t worry, Mrs. Parker, I’ll make sure they behave this time,” she said.

“Oh, honey, call me Aunt May,” the woman told her warmly. “Or even just May is fine.”

Yeji froze for a moment before letting a slow smile bloom on her face. “I will—Aunt May.”

Aunt May smiled at her before giving Vernon another telling look and a hug, telling him to call her if something happened and not to go out alone in case they ran out, they should have enough to keep them going for hours anyway. Then, with a small wave and a few more repetitions of the same warnings, she was gone.

“Damn,” Yangyang mumbled as they watched her walk away, standing behind the open door like the kindergarten kids left behind in an unsupervised classroom, elated by the prospect yet hesitant to step too far out of line. “Didn’t realize she was going to be that strict. Even Fu—”

Vernon kicked him in the shin before he could complete his sentence, making him yowl in indignance. He glared at him through tears of pain, but Vernon ignored him, even when he got a hard punch in the arm in retaliation.

Joshua, Felix, and Yeji all glared at him in sync, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Luce. She stepped back inside the house, amidst the thick atmosphere left behind by Aunt May’s and Harry’s absence, and bit the inside of her cheek before releasing the door. “I’ll, uh—” she gestured vaguely towards somewhere inside the house— “I’ll get the popcorn.”

Vernon watched her go, clenching his fists so tightly his knuckles had turned white. He glanced helplessly at Yeji, who had been watching him anxiously. Upon the look on his face, she nodded subtly, herding the rest of the group into the living room.

“Come on, dumbass,” she muttered in a low voice to Yangyang, who was still pouting huffily. “Be a little more careful with what you say, huh? You’re supposed to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, for goodness’s sake.”

“It’s not my _fault,”_ Yangyang protested, only to have Felix whack him upside the head. “Hey!”

“Don’t make the same mistake again,” Yeji murmured to him, casting a meaningful look towards Joshua, who had been looking over quizzically from his spot on the couch. “We still have civilians around here.”

“Oh, don’t worry about him, he knows,” Felix said as he passed them by, munching on the half of a granola bar he seemed to have procured out of thin air. He plopped down on the couch next to Joshua, making it dent a bit under the impact, almost pushing Joshua into the air.

Vernon stared at him, then at Joshua, who looked back, clueless of the secretive conversation that had just taken place. “You—”

“Popcorn,” announced Luce, even more cluelessly, as she walked into the room carrying a bowl that smelled so delicious Vernon’s stomach rumbled in response, cutting him off before he could complete his sentence (thankfully).

A silence fell over the group, the ones who had already been in the room tensing at the sudden entry. Luce blinked, glancing between them, then lowered the bowl slowly. “Actually…” She pressed her lips into an awkward smile. “I think I’m gonna go make some more—kinda forgot there were so many of us. Force of habit.”

Vernon stepped forward, but she gave him a quick smile before disappearing back into the kitchen. “Great,” he mumbled, passing a hand over his face. “She probably thinks we’re up to something now.”

“Technically, we are,” Yangyang interjected.

 _“You,”_ Vernon hissed, whirling on him, and stabbed a finger at his chest, making the surprised boy step back. “I told you to be more careful! Now you’ve gone and messed it all up and both Aunt May and Luce suspect something’s up, and if they get wind of what I’m up to when we—”

“Vernon.” Yeji put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it in an assuasive manner. “Try to be quiet, at least. Yelling isn’t going to help our case, either.”

Vernon took a deep breath and stepped away from Yangyang, who watched him with round eyes. “I _knew_ this was a bad idea,” he said miserably. “I should’ve known better than to trust _him_ with something like this.”

For once, Yangyang didn’t quip back, only pressing his lips together as Vernon headed towards the stairs that led up to his room. “I’m gonna go get us…something. I don’t know, I need a moment,” Vernon muttered. “Can one of you talk to Luce, make sure she’s not too weirded out by you guys? _Not_ you, Nova.”

To his credit, Yangyang didn’t say anything. Felix nodded, getting up from the couch with a cautionary glance at him and made his way towards the kitchen. Vernon climbed up the stairs heavily, switching on the lights in his room and giving himself two minutes to calm down before he made his way back downstairs.

He had known having Spider-Man stuff mix with Vernon Parker stuff was going to create trouble, but he’d allowed himself to hope that maybe these guys could make it work. _Well, apparently not._

He leaned against his desk and closed his eyes. They _could_ have made it work, if it hadn’t been for Yangyang. That guy never knew when to shut up. At first, Vernon had assumed that his irritating qualities were just a natural personality trait that wouldn’t interfere with real life, but boy, had he been proved wrong.

Accidentally letting slip even the tiniest detail about their double life to people could have disastrous consequences, and Vernon knew those consequences well. Sometimes, it cost innocent people their lives.

 _I should have just said no to Luce when I still had the chance,_ he thought unhappily. He had to work day and night to keep Spider-Man a secret from his friends and family, even harder than usual now that he had to cover up for an additional three people. _I shouldn’t have let my guard down._

Someone knocked at his door. “Can I come in?” Yeji’s muffled voice spoke from the other side.

Vernon sighed, but relented, opening the door and letting her in. Her eyes glanced around the room for a few seconds before coming to rest on him, and softened fractionally.

“I’ll be down in a few seconds,” he said tiredly. “I just needed a moment. Couldn’t start yelling at Yangyang out of nowhere in front of Luce.”

She nodded, but didn’t say anything. Vernon sat down heavily on his chair and looked up at her, eyebrows raised. “What?” he asked.

She hesitated for a moment before speaking. “This is going to sound bad,” she said, “but you shouldn’t be too hard on Yangyang.”

“Huh, really?” he asked, a hard edge to his voice. “You think so?”

“Vernon—”

“I know you think I’m overreacting, but I’m not,” he said tersely. “Someone close to you finding out about your secret identity is a dangerous thing. You know what happened the last time someone I cared about found out I was Spider-Man? He _died,_ Yeji.”

Yeji pursed her lips. Neither of them said anything for a long moment, and Vernon glared holes into the tabletop as he waited in vain for his anger to abate.

“You know,” she started, “Yangyang never lets anyone see his room in the Helicarrier, but I saw it once. It was just after we were told we’d be working with you, before Fury told you about us.” Vernon glanced at her curiously, and found her looking thoughtfully at some point in the distance. There was a soft smile on her face.

“It was nothing special or different, just like the rooms the rest of us had been assigned with the single bed and desk arrangement, but there was something about the way he’d decorated it,” she said. “Most people had pictures of their families, some had medals or posters, but Yangyang? His room was _covered_ in Spider-Man posters.” She laughed. “Cutouts from newspapers, magazine covers, article clippings—everywhere I turned, it had Spider-Man’s face plastered all over it.”

Vernon stared at her, dumbfounded. Yeji gave him a wry smile, leaning against the doorframe. “He hero-worships you, Pete,” she said. “I know he can come off as annoying and rash sometimes, but he means well. He just doesn’t know how to act around you. Just...give him some time.”

Vernon opened his mouth, then closed it. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said, lifting a single shoulder in a shrug. _“Especially_ not to Yangyang. If he found out I told you all of this, he’d probably throw me off a bridge.”

“You can swim,” he said instinctively, then shook his head. “But, uh, thanks. For telling me.”

She nodded once, a small smile still playing on her lips. “Don’t mention it. Literally,” she added. “I have to say, I’m impressed that you really let Felix stay alone with Luce for so long.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t,” she said airily, as she turned to walk out of the door, but he didn’t miss the mischievous glint in her eye. Despite himself, he smiled. “Come on.”


	11. Movie Night

Luce regretted expecting anything to change on Friday night.

Six had sounded like a good number. Three pairs were better than three people, so no one would be left out, not even her. She felt a little selfish when she thought of it that way—especially since she had been the one to tell Vernon to treat the new kids better and help them feel included. Still, this was supposed to be a private event, and she was a generally private person. Some people she barely knew couldn’t replace Harry just like that, and she was allowed to be a little distant.

The kitchen wasn’t the best hangout spot in the Parker house, but she’d rather have stayed cooped up inside it all night long than tough it out with a group of people who had their own little thing going on. Luce stared at a dirty spot on the counter as she leaned over it, waiting for the popcorn to be done and wishing it would somehow take another hour.

When she had walked into the living room, the tension had been palpable. The silence that had fallen upon the rest had been awkward enough to replace the usual words. It had been painfully obvious: even with a group of people they had met just weeks ago, she was still the outsider.

“Aren’t you heating the popcorn a little too much?”

She almost jumped at the new voice. One of the new guys (god, she really needed to stop calling them the _new guys_ in her head, it was getting annoyingly repetitive) was standing at the door with a confused smile on his face.

“Huh?” she asked. Felix gestured behind her, and she looked back at the microwave oven, which was still heating the popcorn. “Oh,” she murmured. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I zoned out for a moment there.”

His smile evened out a bit. “Just make sure you don’t set the house on fire,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye like he was making a private joke that he knew she wouldn’t get. “Which, by the way, is a story you’ve got to tell me someday.”

“‘Someday’ being the keyword,” she said as she leaned against the counter, her thoughts settling after the disturbance. _Alright, time to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get the hell over it._

The corners of Felix’s eyes crinkled. He walked over to her side of the counter, taking the ready bowl of popcorn into his hands as she watched warily, surprised when he didn’t drop it despite how hot it was. “Sorry about what happened back there,” he muttered, and she froze for a moment. “Yangyang did something, and Vernon kind of just…yeah.”

She wasn’t convinced, but decided there was no use needling him about it. That just wasn’t her thing. “You don’t need to apologize,” she told him. “I know that those two clash a lot, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Doesn’t feel that way,” he said, and she felt that. He propped his elbow against the counter, obviously settling into a position for a longer conversation than a needless apology. She wasn’t sure if she liked that. “Vernon tells me you’re working on the board for the school newspaper.”

 _Vernon sure says a lot of things._ “That’s just a side thing,” she said, as he popped a kernel into his mouth and chewed slowly. Felix was the last person she had expected to show up for small talk, but then, she didn’t know him very well. “I’m actually a writer. Or I try to be one.”

“A writer?” he echoed, raising his eyebrows, and she nodded, leaning over to steal some popcorn from the bowl in his hands. Usually she’d steer the conversation in a different direction the moment it started becoming about herself, but he looked so genuinely curious that she didn’t know how to. “What do you write?”

Luce laughed. It wasn’t an unusual question or anything like that, but she didn’t know what to say. A stray kernel popped in the oven as she pulled back, resting her elbows against the edge of the counter. “Nothing, really,” she answered. “Anything?”

His eyebrows inched a little higher. “I see.”

She smiled, pushing herself up to sit on the counter. The kitchen was warm, even hot compared to the chilly atmosphere outside, but she still hadn’t taken off her jacket, and the base of her neck was damp with perspiration. Felix, on the other hand, looked absolutely comfortable in his sweater, like Olaf with his personal storm cloud. Some people just never felt the weather.

“It’s a pretty general thing,” she said. “When I say I write, I don’t mean the professional kind of writing with structure and drafts and editing. Mostly I just type up anecdotes or school reports or…other things.” She looked away, at the orange glow from the inside of the oven. “It’s nothing serious.”

Felix tilted his head, looking at her curiously. “And the school newspaper is a side job.”

“Pretty much.”

“Why?”

She glanced at him, cocking an eyebrow. _Why?_ She had no real reason for working there, but she tried putting it into words as well as she could. “As controlling as that might sound, I like knowing things,” Luce said. “And being an amateur reporter helps keep you in the loop about a lot of things, even if it’s all just about a student body.”

He inclined his head. “I guess.”

“It helps you know what people to avoid on what days,” she supplied helpfully. “And we get a coffee maker and a separate snack machine, so that’s another good reason.”

“A separate snack bar, huh?” he asked. “Sounds tempting.”

Luce locked her ankles, periodically knocking her heels against the hardwood drawer under the counter. “What about you?” she asked. “What got you in this hellhole of a high school smack dab in the middle of the term?”

Felix made a face, setting down the bowl. He didn’t reply for a few moments, but she waited, catching the look on his face—the look of someone trying to figure out the best way to say something.

“I was in this other, _special_ school before,” he started, staring into the popcorn bowl. “It was amazing there, but my parents always disapproved of my attending it. Some things had happened before, and there were stories about that place, so they were always skeptical of it. One day, they got wind of the fact that I was…hanging out with the wrong crowd. There was this whole thing, a bunch of kids got beat up.” He sighed. “Long story short, it was the last straw for them. The next week, they pulled me out.”

Luce pursed her lips when she heard the ‘wrong crowd’ statement, but didn’t pry. After all, Felix seemed like a good guy. “And they put you here instead?”

He nodded. “They said they thought I needed some better influence, so they made me change schools so I could get some _real education.”_ He put air quotes around the last two words.

The oven beeped, signaling that the popcorn was done, but neither of them moved to get it. “Do you miss them?” she asked softly. “Your old friends?”

He hesitated before answering, eyes darting away from the bowl. It was only for a split second, but she noticed, which made her feel even worse. “Sometimes,” he said. “Okay, a lot. But it’s not so bad here.” He shrugged. “I actually like normal school.”

Luce frowned. “Normal school?”

“You know,” Felix said, making vague gestures in the air. “With the different teachers and periods and all.”

“Uh huh,” she said slowly. Then she slid off the counter, moving to get the second batch of popcorn out of the oven. “D’you like buttered popcorn?”

“I don’t care for it much.”

“Great, then you can pass me the chili flakes,” she said, pointing at the cabinet above his head. He gave her a questioning look. “Joshua likes them that way. Don’t ask. I don’t, and I’ve never regretted that decision.”

He laughed, getting the flakes for her and passing them over. There was a surprisingly comfortable silence between the two of them as they took the bowls—Felix the now half-eaten one—and headed towards the door.

“Hey,” he said in an undertone before she could exit the kitchen, a gentle hand on her elbow. Luce turned, finding him looking at her with his lips pressed into a soft smile. “Thanks for having us,” he said. “I know it must be hard for you guys after Harry, and us just showing up out of the blue.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, surprised and gratified by the gesture, and smiled back just as softly, hoping he saw that she meant it. “It’s good to have you here.”

* * *

“So I asked Yangyang to pick the movie, and though neither of us came to a good conclusion, I noticed he seemed _especially_ keen on Toy Story, we’re gonna watch that,” Joshua announced to the group when it finally assembled in front of the TV, making Vernon laugh. “Luce, if you would do the honors.”

“I would,” Luce said easily, picking out the title and pressing play as Yangyang made a noise of half-hearted protest. He glanced at Vernon out of the corner of his eye when the movie started playing, and Vernon lowered his head in a single nod, making the boy’s taut expression relax.

The couch was only big enough to hold three of them, so Joshua, Yangyang, and Yeji had pulled up a mattress in front of it to recline on. Yangyang, still complaining about the missed opportunity of constructing a pillow fort for the occasion, tossed a folded-up blanket at Vernon, who caught it deftly and threw it over his, Luce’s, and Felix’s lap. It wasn’t really necessary because of the central heating system, but when Vernon felt Luce lean into his side to keep the blanket from falling off, he realized it had its own uses.

“It’s actually pretty hot in here,” she said, fingering the rubber band keeping her hair in its ponytail. “I should keep my hair up, but my scalp already feels like the Hulk’s been trying to massage it.”

Vernon reached up, brushing past her fingers and pulling at the band. A few strands of her hair loosened and cascaded down her shoulders, some of it brushing his cheek. “There you go,” he murmured, and she gave him an indiscernible look out of the corner of her eye.

Vernon didn’t consider Toy Story an epically emotional movie—it had its moments, but it was no Rise of The Guardians—but Luce seemed to think otherwise. There were no dramatic tears, but he did notice her lips tug downwards at some points, eyes glassing like something about the movie spoke to her despite it being, _technically,_ for kids. He refrained from calling her out on it, because he shouldn’t have been looking at her instead of watching the movie in the first place.

Apart from Yangyang dissolving into tears a couple of times and Felix falling asleep halfway through the movie, the rest of the night was surprisingly uneventful. By the time the movie was over, it was well past eleven p.m., and despite Joshua’s attempts at making them sit down to watch the entire trilogy, Yangyang, Yeji, and a very sleepy Felix said they had to get back home.

Vernon accompanied them to the door, Luce and Joshua opting out on account of their legs having fallen asleep on them, though he knew they just didn’t want to leave the warmth of the blanket. He bid his team a goodbye, still feeling warm and fuzzy like a pair of bunny flip-flops, and even the thought of having to get up before twelve the next day couldn’t take away that good mood.

“Sorry I couldn’t get Aunt May to teach you how to play video games,” he told Yeji at the door. “Maybe next time.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You sure there will be a next time?”

“Well, none of you trashed the place badly enough for May to permanently ban you, so unless there’s an out-of-the-blue alien invasion, there will probably be a next time,” he said. “Although an alien invasion happening in New York isn’t really that hard to believe.”

Yangyang nodded sagely. “I mean, it’s happened before.”

Yeji rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Make sure you don’t miss training tomorrow, we have a team building activity lined up by Fury himself,” she reminded him. “And _don’t_ let Joshua talk you into watching 2 and 3. You’re supposed to be up on time for drills.”

“That’s probably not gonna happen, but I’ll try,” Vernon said, grinning. “Now go. If you don’t get back to the Helicarrier by curfew, Fury will have _me_ for breakfast.”

“Aye, aye, Team Leader,” Felix said, giving him a lazy smile—or perhaps that was just exhaustion from having his beauty sleep interrupted. “See you tomorrow when we kick robot butt again.”

They left, and when Vernon closed the door behind them, he found that he couldn’t move. The entryway was bathed in the soft orange glow of the nightlight, but everything seemed too dark. Too quiet. His smile faded as he continued standing at the door, his hand on the knob, his body frozen in time.

It didn’t use to be this silent.

When he got back to the room, Vernon was surprised to see Joshua and Luce wide awake, the screen of the TV dark. They had been conversing in quiet tones, falling silent when he showed up. The three stared at each other for a long moment, all quiet. Now that Yangyang, Yeji, and Felix were gone, he felt the sudden weight of the atmosphere, of something left unaddressed for far too long.

Harry’s absence was so heavy and obvious that it felt like another person in the room with them, the lack of someone taking up even more space than the presence of them. The chair closest to the TV sat untouched, like a relic in a museum behind glass walls, everyone’s eyes on it. For the first time, Vernon allowed himself to truly feel the hollowness of the loss of his best friend, unadulterated by distraction or power or responsibility.

Not grief. What he felt was emptiness, so whole and so encompassing in its wholeness that it made him feel like he had been swallowed up by a black hole. And when he let his eyes meet those of the other two, he knew they felt it too.

“You want us to stay over tonight?” Joshua asked quietly, the first to break the silence. His round glasses glinted in the sparse light.

“Of course,” Vernon murmured, his grip around air tightening like a vice. “But your parents—”

“Called them already,” Joshua said, jumping to his feet. The blanket fell away, and he snatched it up again, throwing it over his shoulders like a cape.

“And mine won’t notice I’m gone until morning, so nothing to worry about there,” Luce said. She gave him a small smile. “Unless you’d rather have a boys’ night out, in which case, I can finish the trilogy at home.”

“No,” Vernon whispered. “Stay.”

She nodded, her playful expression softening to—something. He had seen that look a hundred times, but had never been able to find a suitable word for it. It simply existed, out of words and belonging to something beyond the dictionary, like a feeling that could only be felt.

“I can barely believe they left so early,” Joshua said loudly, breaking them both out of their shared moment as he trudged past them towards the staircase, the blanket trailing behind him like a royal’s robes. “They probably believed May was actually going to come back by midnight, although I don’t blame them because of the look on her face when she…”

His voice trailed off into a faint murmur as he reached the top of the staircase and disappeared into the hallway leading to the room upstairs. Luce glanced at Vernon, and grinned before bumping his shoulder and following Joshua up the stairs. Vernon stared at her retreating back, watching her until she turned the corner and following moments later.

He didn’t realize he was smiling until he did.


	12. Hard-earned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a cookie to everyone who catches the ultimate spider-man (show/comic) references !!!!

Dr. Connors sat in front of the laptop in his office, eyes fixated on the glare of the screen for so long that they had begun to burn. He had become so absorbed in his work that he had failed to notice the natural light from the windows begin to dim, which they had started to do hours ago, and he was now sitting in darkness, his figure illuminated only by the glaring blue light of the screen.

His work habits in the past had often resulted in him sitting long past work hours in his lab, working like a madman long after everyone else had left. Dr. Connors was no stranger to fatigue, nor to toiling despite it, but this time was different.

He had once read a theory that there were five stages of grief, and after a decade had passed since Richard Parker’s death, he had thought he’d gotten to the final stage of acceptance. But then his son had shown up just months ago, carrying his warm eyes and his knowing smile and the carefully built wall of denial Dr. Connors had constructed between himself and the incident had come crashing down.

He might not be able to accept his former colleague’s death, but he had accepted that he would never be able to get over it.

Seeing Vernon had awoken in him a desire to set things right, to do Richard’s work justice instead of letting it rot in abandonment and neglect. Dr. Connors knew that the making of this cure wasn’t like the Lizard experiment—it wasn’t just for himself, but it was to honor the memory of one of the greatest scientists and people he had ever known, and he knew that that meant he could make no mistakes this time. If a premature test run on the lizard formula had ended in such disaster, there was no knowing what even a slight mistake in the cure’s formula could bring.

At the same time, he was impatient. Dr. Connors had failed too many times, and this was too important for even a minor setback to hold it back.

His door creaked as it opened, and Dr. Connors looked up at the sound. It had been loud enough to break him out of his thoughts, probably for the better, because when he caught sight of his reflection in the glass paperweight his eyes were bloodshot.

Darren Cross, the CEO of Pym Tech himself, stood inside his office room, looking out of place in the mess of papers and squashed furniture in his pressed gray business suit with not a single visible crease. He pressed his lips into a smile by way of greeting as Dr. Connors straightened in his seat before getting to his feet, his dark eyes glinting with an intelligent light when they met Dr. Connors’s tired blue ones. “Good evening, Dr. Connors—or should I say night?” he said. “Working late today?”

Dr. Connors glanced back at the screen of his laptop. _11:29 p.m.,_ the tiny time display on the bottom of the screen flashed. “Whenever inspiration strikes,” he said with a dry smile.

“Good, good,” Cross murmured pleasantly, his gaze gliding over the various scribbled-on pages crumpled on Dr. Connors’s table. He placed a fingertip on the edge of the table and walked across the room, slowly dragging his hand along as he did. “After all, the success rates of a project could make or break its future.”

Dr. Connors frowned, then his brow smoothed over. The sentence had been normal enough in a conversation between two people in their respective positions, but there had been something about the way the man had said it, honey-smooth voice bordering on a threat. His hands had stilled on the tabletop as the scientist struggled to keep his demeanor calm, which was difficult in his drained state. “I’m sorry,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to say.”

Cross paused in his walk, glancing up at Dr. Connors slowly. He didn’t speak for a few moments, the muscles of his face puled tight, as if he was struggling to find the right words to convey his feelings. Then he sighed, straightening, and gave the hem of his jacket a slight correctional tug.

“I’ll get straight to the point, Dr. Connors,” he said with an almost regretful look on his face. “I had been hoping to avoid this conversation until later, but there has been a lot of pressure on me by the board after the recent problems, and I suppose it is better if we could, er—rip it off like a band-aid.”

Dr. Connors didn’t move a muscle. “You said you were going to get straight to the point,” he said, “so please do so. Why are you here in my office, Darren? At an hour like this?”

The taut muscles of the other man’s remorseful expression loosened slightly. “As you may already know, the repeated failures of your recent projects despite the astronomical amounts of money going into them are…bad for the company,” he said. “The world is watching Pym Tech after the failure of Oscorp to bring to the table its promised bioengineering revolution. Even more carefully are they watching you, doctor, after your failings within Oscorp and now here.” His dark eyes moved around the room before finally coming to rest on Dr. Connors’s. “After your careless abandonment of all your recent research for something new and, yet, something so _old,_ there has been a lot of unrest in the board.”

Dr. Connors looked back steadily. His heart had begun to pound in his chest, but he refused to allow it to show on his face. “And?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Cross turned away, looking at the moonlight model of a lizard skeleton on top of a drawer pushed below the window. “They want results, Dr. Connors,” he said with an air of finality in his tone. “Results that prove their funding isn’t going into yet another colossal letdown.”

Dr. Connors clenched his teeth. “My old work did not _fail.”_

Cross raised his eyebrows. “Your lizard serum speaks otherwise,” he said, and the scientist froze. _He couldn’t—it can’t be_. “Yet another invention you had proclaimed would bring about a revolution in the field of cross-genetics medicine, and look how that turned out.”

Dr. Connors stood frozen in place, jaw tightened with anger and fear as the man crossed back to the door. His steps were now more purposeful, as if the disguised threat had given him more confidence.

“My point is, Dr. Connors, we don’t want another catastrophe that could wreak havoc upon the company’s reputation,” Cross said. “In fact, we want a complete success, and we need it as fast as possible.” He tilted his head, looking barely emphatic despite trying his hardest to. “Pym Tech is a rich corporation, but we don’t invest in failures. It’s hard enough trying to keep you here with all the opposition because of your past shortcomings. We can’t keep going like this forever.”

He shook his head, hand now on the door. Dr. Connors tried to say something, but it felt as if his lips had been sealed shut. How Darren Cross had found out about his use of the lizard serum, he didn’t know, but if word got out, he could be ruined, his work done forever. The only other person who knew about him was Spider-Man—but then…

“Work on your new project for as late as you wish, doctor,” Cross said, making him snap back to attention. The smile on the man’s face was probably meant to be reassuring, but in the dark, it looked like the edge of a knife, quick and sharp, gleaming for a moment in the heavy darkness. “After all, you don’t have much time.”

* * *

“God, I can’t believe we let him _do_ that to us,” Felix said in disgust, pulling off his sock and shaking it. A considerable amount of sand showered the floor, and he made a face at it before moving to the other foot. “I have sand in places you couldn’t even _imagine.”_

“Oh, I can imagine it, alright,” Vernon muttered. His gloves, socks and mask were all off, and he was running his fingers through his hair trying to get rid of the sand that was still caught in it. _Well, it could have been worse,_ he thought helplessly, glancing at Yeji, who had her teeth gritted as she tried to card her hand through her long hair.

They were in the conference room just beyond the aircraft hangar in the Helicarrier, having landed back after a particularly long and grueling training session. Usually, most of their work was learning team maneuvers and battle tactics before practicing them with specially designed combat-focus bots, but this time Fury had decided they needed a real challenge, and had sent them out to a classified location in the Bermuda Triangle itself, where a combat range had been set up for them to get through. It could have been a cakewalk, if the weather and geology hadn’t gotten in their way. Ninety-nine percent of their problem had been sand.

“I have sand up my _asscrack,”_ Yangyang complained, running his thumb along the inside of the waistband of his pants.

“We all do,” Felix said, rolling his eyes, “but you don’t see us announcing it to the world.”

“You don’t get to complain,” Yangyang retaliated. “Tropical climate survival versus a guy with ice powers? You had a good advantage over us and you _know_ it.”

“Not as much as the girl who literally channels the power of a mystical white tiger amulet,” Felix grumbled in defense, averting his eyes. “Yeji had the base token before I was even halfway through the course.”

Yeji narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t see _you_ being the only one having to cover the range on foot—”

“Guys, guys, don’t fight,” Vernon said. Yeji shot him a glare and he raised his hands placatingly, but put them down almost immediately when he felt a sand-caused itch in his side. “The whole point of this session was to help us work better as team. Are you really going to trash three hours of off-site work with a petty argument about who had it the easiest?”

“Like you care,” Yangyang mumbled, brushing away a few grains of sand from his helmet. “You just want Fury to give us an early release.”

“Don’t we all?” Felix muttered, just as the doors to the hangar slid open. Agent Coulson walked in, face set in a knowing smile that was so teacher-like it gave Vernon the shivers. He was in a regular S.H.I.E.L.D. agent bodysuit, but they had seen him in nothing but a business suit during school hours for so long that the sight looked alien.

“Back early, I see,” he said, and Vernon couldn’t help noticing that the smile hadn’t budged an inch even after the man had seen them in such an un-superhero-like state. It made him feel like he had good news in store—and good news for Coulson usually equated to bad news for the team. Vernon suppressed a groan as the agent turned towards him, hands clasped behind his back. “Your presence is required in the weapons room.”

“Just me?” the boy mumbled, still shaking the sand out of his hair. The suit felt weird and bulky, sagging in odd places, and itching at spots that weren’t usually supposed to itch. “If you’re going to chew me out about technique, you can do it in front of them, you know.”

“Good to see you trusting your teammates more,” Coulson said, still without the frightening smile slipping off his face, “but this is a Spider-Man related situation. No one’s going to chew you out.”

“It’s not about trust, it’s about the sand up my asscrack,” Vernon said, and Yangyang exclaimed triumphantly. “I think it’d be easier for me to walk around if I got cleaned up before.”

“Nonsense,” Coulson said cheerfully. “Part of your training is learning how to handle all kinds of atmospheres and conditions—a simple walk to the weapons room shouldn’t hurt. Besides, I don’t have time to wait around as you get cleaned up. I have a school to run.”

“Technically, you don’t _run_ the school,” Vernon muttered, but obliged. He noticed Felix watch him go pityingly, but he kept his gaze fixed resolutely on the ground before him as he followed Coulson out of the room and into the hallway, moving as stiffly as he could so as not to irritate his sensitive skin.

“Had fun out there?” Coulson asked pleasantly, then barreled on without waiting for an answer. “Ah, I remember when _I_ was sent out for a DA mission during my trainee days. Sandsmark almost got blown up by an activated landmine…”

Vernon tuned him out as they walked down the hall, taking a couple of turns before reaching the weapons room. Coulson, still talking, swiped his ID over the card scanner, and the doors opened silently, letting them in.

Despite his current uncomfortable state, Vernon couldn’t help but marvel at the sight. Even after all the time he’d spent inside the Helicarrier, he had never been inside the weapons room, and the size of it was astounding. It was twice as big as Dr. Connors’s laboratory and somehow thrice as busy. He suddenly felt hyperaware of his costume missing some parts, realizing he probably looked awkward as hell with all the other developers walking around in full gear and/or lab coats. Maybe they would assume it was a Spider-Man thing. He deserved some slack after what he’d been through that day.

“Here,” Coulson said, bringing him to a station in the deeper sections of the lab, where a lone blond scientist stood at a low table next to Nick Fury, who acknowledged Vernon’s presence with a nod of his head.

Vernon glanced at Agent Coulson, confused, before looking back at Fury. “Spider-Man,” Fury said, and it struck Vernon how the man never called him by his real name. “I personally monitored your progress in the training session today, and you did good—good enough that I think you’ve become responsible enough to handle some real gear upgrades as other post-human agents.” He gestured to the scientist next to him, who gave Vernon a wide smile. “This is Eddie Brock.”

Vernon stared at Fury for a few long seconds before casting an unsure look towards the still-smiling Coulson, and then the scientist. “Um,” he said intelligently. “Hi.”

“I can’t express how big of an honor it is to finally meet you,” the scientist said, grasping his hand and giving it a firm downward tug.

“He’s the guy behind all the tech we’re developing solely for the use of Spider-Man,” Fury said. “The survival training today was a test, and you passed it with flying colors. I had thought it’d take you a while to get here, but you’ve managed to surprise me.”

“Tech for the use of Spider-Man,” Vernon repeated. The words refused to click in his brain, until he looked about him, at the models of familiar-but-not-quite technology arranged in the cases and on the display table. “And gear upgrades—wait, you mean—”

“I do.” The corner of Fury’s mouth quirked up. “Like your teammates, your suit will now be developed to assist you in combat.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of expanding upon your old web-shooter models—genius design, by the way—” Eddie Brock the scientist gushed— “added flash webs and taser webs and—well, you can see for yourself when you try it out. And installed some other upgrades in your suit, just general additions, like insulation layers and some lens reconstruction.”

Vernon gaped at him, stunned. Being taken on as an unofficial ‘team leader’ for a group of newbie vigilantes had meant getting a certain level of…backup from S.H.I.E.L.D., but this had definitely not been on the memo when he had first gotten the invite/threat from Fury. But after all of this…

“You mean all this stuff—” He gestured in a wide arc at the web-shooter models— “is for _me?”_

“Told you, you didn’t want to miss this.” Coulson chuckled.

Vernon looked at Fury, who looked slightly amused. Training was one thing, but being officially integrated into the system, as a recognized hero—when he was _sixteen,_ for god’s sake— “This is…this is…it’s incredible,” he stammered. “But…how?”

“Congratulations, kid. You earned it,” Fury said, and tossed him a small object, which Vernon caught out of the air—an ID badge, much like the one Coulson had earlier used to access the weapons room. “You’re officially an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.”


	13. Chapter 13

Felix’s shirt smelled so bad it could have attracted carrion flies.

He hadn’t gotten around to washing his gym uniform in ages. Usually, he liked keeping himself clean and made a habit out of it (one of the few things that had been drilled into his head because of his S.H.I.E.L.D. training rather than his time at the Xavier Institute) but after having missed every single gym period the previous week because of missions, it had taken a lower rung on his priority list.

The shirt had been stuck in his locker for so long it was beginning to grow moldy. Felix refused to look at the armpits under the sleeves, hoping there wasn’t some kind of exotic fungi dotting the blue fabric, and pulled it over his head. Immediately, he was attacked by the smell that seemed to climb into his eyes and nose and ears, eating away at his skin like acid. “Ugh,” he mumbled, pinching his nose and squeezing his eyes shut.

“What’s up, Liu?” the persistently annoying tone of Flash’s voice came from behind him. Felix didn’t want to face him, but he couldn’t help himself from turning. Flash had one leg cocked up on the bench and a smirk cocked on his lips, looking so pleased that Felix wondered if he had thought up a particularly good insult. “Did an alley cat piss all over you today?”

“Piss off, Flash,” Felix muttered, rolling his eyes. _That wasn’t even funny._ He walked out into the court with his arms rigid as if stuck to his sides, ignoring Flash’s calls and having decided not to raise them throughout the forty minutes he had to be out there. He hoped that all he would have to do was laps around the perimeter or maybe even fake an ankle sprain, but of course he wasn’t going to be that lucky.

Coach Henderson, the gym teacher—a squad, stocky man with a permanent scowl fixed on his face that was surprisingly misleading in regards to his personality—divided them up into teams and tossed them an old dodgeball instead of giving them the usual Tuesday treatment, which was exactly what had happened last time (Felix didn’t know why he had expected anything different).

Felix, Yeji, and Luce took up one side while Joshua, Vernon, and Yangyang took up the other. Most of the time, the team simply opted out of sports because it gave them an unfair advantage, but Felix felt bad about missing all the old classes and also didn’t want to get into trouble. _God, I should have just stolen Yangyang’s shirt instead. No one would be surprised if he smelled bad._

Thankfully, grouping with his usual people meant that they would talk more than they played, unless Yeji got competitive. For such a disciplined agent, she sure could be a wildcat when she wanted.

And the amulet, of course, helped with that. With a dawning sense of horror, Felix watched as she lifted her nose into the air and sniffed it inquisitively, eyes narrowing in suspicion. Felix pressed his lips into a thin line, recalling the time she had explained her abilities to him—and near the top of her list had been enhanced sense of smell.

 _Don’t look over here, don’t look over here,_ he thought desperately as she looked over at him. He glared fiercely at the ball, then threw it as hard as he could at an unsuspecting Vernon, who—of course, given his spider sense—managed to dodge it anyway. The brunet picked up the ball, then narrowed his eyes at Felix.

“Throw it!” Luce called. She looked strange out of her usual monochrome wardrobe, with her hair pulled back with the kind of careless grace that he had grown to associate with her. When she gave him a feral smile, he couldn’t help but think of a lynx. A little intimidating at first, but extremely friendly when you got into the safe zone.

Vernon shook his head, a small smile on his face, and tossed the ball back to her. This time, Felix hung at the back as they played another lifeless round, and it didn’t take ten minutes for them to stop for a very unnecessary break.

Luce and Vernon were having a hushed conversation to one side of the net, and, Yangyang being Yangyang, had decided to take the opportunity to annoy Felix. He sauntered over with his hands stuck into his pockets, a lopsided grin on his face, and leaned in close. “We’re going to _pummel_ you guys—” Suddenly, he stopped, and pulled upright with his nose scrunched up. “Yo, what’s that smell?”

“Your face,” Felix muttered, shuffling backwards and leaning to the side, hoping he was now far enough that he couldn’t be smelled.

Yangyang pulled a face at him, then shook his head, like, _never mind._ “Hey,” he said, tone changing suddenly. Felix sat down heavily on the court, and the boy followed him, sitting down next to him. “Did you find the Rhino’s records?”

Felix frowned at him. “You’re a little late to the party, don’t you think?” he asked. “Yeji pulled them up ages ago. She’s been around the longest and has the most access, so I asked her to do it.”

“So you found the records?”

“Yeah,” he said.

Yangyang made an impatient sound at the back of his throat. “And?” he prompted.

“Inconclusive,” Felix said, directing towards him a small, sarcastic smile. “I don’t know, dude, what do you want me to say?”

Yangyang hesitated. He cracked the knuckles of his left hand, then his right. Felix counted the seconds as he waited, still grouchy from being unable to properly use his arms. “So I’ve been thinking,” Yangyang started after almost a full minute. “About what Vernon said about the Green Goblin’s MO being all over the attacks, I mean.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Felix muttered. He got to his feet again, then dusted off the butt of his gym shorts. Yangyang followed his movements, getting up quickly and springing up at his side. The smell was overpowering, so bad that Felix could barely think about anything else. It was driving him crazy.

“And I was there when we took Shocker in, you know, like I _saw_ the whole thing go down,” Yangyang continued in an urgent whisper. If Felix hadn’t been so distracted by his crap hygiene, he would have been extremely curious to listen. “Like, I was right _there_ , and that guy was barely paying any attention to me—heck, he didn’t even seem that anxious to fight Vernon, and that got me thinking—”

“You think?” a new voice at Felix’s shoulder said.

Felix jumped, his brain going into mindless defense mode. The back of his hand—hardened with a thin sheen of ice—connected with something soft but tough (like skin over bone, he would later realize) and the person behind him yelled, grabbing his wrist and forcing it away. Felix turned, eyes wide, ready to apologize when he saw Joshua cradling his jaw, his glasses knocked askew from their perch on his nose bridge. His knuckles had glanced the side of Joshua’s face, and though Felix hadn’t hit him too hard, he still seemed to be in pain.

“Why is it that whenever I try to talk to you, you bodily harm me?” the blue-haired boy mumbled, reaching up with his free hand to fix his glasses. The other four had pressed pause on whatever they were doing as well, and were staring at the scene that unfolded before them.

Felix winced, sucking in the humanity-warmed, sweat-dampened air through his teeth. It wasn’t half as bad as the smell emitting from his uniform. “Sorry,” he murmured to the boy. “But why the hell do you have to skulk like that?”

“I don’t _skulk,”_ Joshua said indignantly, still holding the side of his face. Felix raised his hands as if reaching out towards the boy, then dropped them. What was he supposed to do? Plus, if he did raise his arms, the stench would knock Joshua out faster than any head wound.

“Is your jaw…” Felix asked awkwardly. “You know, broken?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Yangyang said, and Felix shot him a withering glance.

“I think I’m gonna go to the nurse’s office,” Joshua mumbled. “I can already feel my tongue swelling up.”

Behind him, Luce snorted. “Right.”

He ignored her, poking the underside of his jaw. Felix stepped forward hastily, eager to grab the opportunity to skip the rest of gym period. “I’ll go with you,” he told the boy, who raised his eyebrows but didn’t challenge him. “Moral responsibility and stuff.”

Joshua shrugged. “If I don’t reappear after this period, call 911,” he told Vernon, who smiled. Then he turned, marching out of the gym, and Felix hurried after him.

Yeji shook her head at him as he passed by, but Felix didn’t dare meet her eyes in case she commented on his personal hygiene, even though he knew she wasn’t like that. He followed Joshua out into the empty hallway, hanging back so he’d be able to avoid uncomfortable conversation.

“The corridors always look ghostly when you walk down them in the middle of class,” Joshua commented, and Felix played with his fingers, staring downwards resolutely. “Usually they’re filled to the brim with sweaty teenagers—but it probably doesn’t feel the same way to you, since you’re out of class every now and then. Don’t the teachers ever get suspicious?”

Felix thought about it. “I guess a lot of the staff is monitored by Agent—Principal—” He fumbled with the words. “By Agent Principal Coulson.” Joshua gave him an entertained look, but since half of his face was still squished under his hand, it made him look more amusing than amused. “He’s probably fed them some elaborate lie about our history or something. And he rotates our lineup for different operations often enough.”

“Still, teachers usually have a sixth sense for this kind of thing,” Joshua mused. “It’s not like with the other kids. I’d be surprised if some of them didn’t suspect anything.”

Felix shrugged as they reached the med bay—or the high school equivalent of one: a small square room with a rickety cot pushed to one side, the only other furniture in the room being a plastic chair with a missing back and a small cabinet on the wall next to it. An off-white curtain—which was really just a white curtain that had yellowed over the years—hung down one side, sectioning off the area for washing up or other gross stuff Felix didn’t want to think about.

“Isn’t the nurse in?” he inquired, and Joshua let out a muffled laugh behind his hand like a parent laughing at a child’s adorably naïve query.

“Right,” the blue-haired boy said, three-fourths of a smile peeking out from behind his hand. “And isn’t there an ice pack in the—never mind, actually, isn’t there a _fridge?”_

Felix looked around, baffled. There really wasn’t a fridge. “Isn’t there something else you put on wounds? Like a spray or something?” he asked, unsure. “Maybe they have that instead?”

Joshua grinned at him, obviously enjoying his bewilderment. “Honestly, I shouldn’t even have bothered with coming here,” he said. “There’s always a good chance the nurse is in, but the new one’s a young-ish guy with other distractions, and it’s like a one out of ten probability.” He sat down on the cot, which screeched under his weight like a dying banshee.

“So…now what?” Felix asked. He walked over to the cot and sat down next to him gingerly, but the cot still screeched anyway. “Are we just going to sit here?”

 _“We?”_ Joshua’s eyebrows arched. “I thought _I_ was the injured one.”

“Moral responsibility,” Felix repeated stubbornly, making the boy chuckle. “Anyway, I don’t feel so good. If that ball hits me in the stomach, I’ll barf.”

“You don’t smell so good,” Joshua said.

Felix’s lips thinned. _So that_ didn’t _go unnoticed._ “I forgot to do my laundry.”

“Happens to me every other week, so I feel ya.” Joshua patted his shoulder. “One time I _did_ do the laundry, but accidentally dropped my sister’s red skirt into the basket with my white shirt, and…well.”

He snorted. “Fashionable.”

“You know it.” Joshua shifted his jaw to the other hand, and winced. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”

Felix looked at him sideways, uncertain. Then, slowly, he raised his hand towards the side of Joshua’s face. The boy looked at him inquisitively, but Felix only nodded his head, and with a sigh, Joshua dropped his other hand.

There was a red mark like a weal on his jaw, with the skin around it only slightly swollen, but Felix knew from experience it was going to have a much more definitive shape a few hours later. He touched the back of his hand to the mark, and the skin of his hand turned paler and more translucent by the second, until it looked like a detailed ice sculpture rather than a real, human appendage.

Joshua, who had stiffened in pain from the initial contact, relaxed and sighed contentedly. “Damn,” he mumbled. “You’re like a personal, convertible, slightly oversized ice cooler.”

Felix grinned. “You have no idea,” he said softly, recalling the time he and the other X-Men had to go on a recon mission disguised as a picnic for fieldwork. “One time, Scott made me carry all his drinks, refusing to lug around an actual ice cooler in the Blackbird. Then we got attacked, so I had to drop the drinks and fight with the others. By the time we got back, there wasn’t a single drop left.”

Joshua smiled, but Felix couldn’t fully discern his expression because his eyes had been hidden by the light shining off his glasses. Then he turned his head slightly, and Felix saw a wistfulness in his face, like the look some people got when they saw mutants in battle. “Must be nice,” he said. “All of us normal people, we have funny anecdotes, but there’s something almost fairytale-like about you guys’ stories.”

Felix sobered up a little, pushing the thoughts of his old team out of his mind. “Not always,” he said in a gravelly voice, looking away. “The bad outweighs the good.”

Joshua shook his head. “For me, nothing really outweighs anything,” he said. “There are good things, and then there are bad things. Neither of them cancels out the other, they just exist, together, sometimes at the same time. The existence of bad things doesn’t mean there are no good things…you get me?”

 _Sometimes at the same time._ Felix stared at the reflection of the light on the dirty, tiled floors, and thought about a million different things. Losing his old team, gaining his new team, Xavier’s School and Midtown High, the X-Men and S.H.I.E.L.D. There had been Jean and Scott and Hank, and now there was Yeji and Vernon and Yangyang.

“Yeah,” Felix murmured, his pursed lips easing into a soft smile. “I get you.”


	14. Hairball

Vernon crawled down the ventilation shaft in the Pym Tech building in near-pitch blackness, his way illuminated only by the new sensors installed in his lenses by team of S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists who had upgraded his gear. Being excited to see the new tech had been one thing, but actually getting to use it and have it help him out was even better.

He was in the vents not for a stealth mission, but to put his theory about Dr. Connors’s ‘cure’—which the others had taken to calling, very fittingly, The Cure—and his own perfectly bonded spider-human blood to the test. As he couldn’t exactly have sneaked inside the building at one a.m. in the morning as Vernon Parker, he had decided to go all-in as Spider-Man—so at least if he accidentally tripped a burglar alarm and alert the security guard, he could pretend he was doing something heroically excusable.

Travelling by ventilation systems wasn’t his favorite thing—it usually redeemed itself, though, because of the look on his enemies’ faces when he dropped down on them out of nowhere. That wasn’t applicable in this situation, because a. no enemies, and b. he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to see _anything_ in this darkness. Even with all his superpowers and cool gear, Spider-Man could not, unfortunately, glow in the dark.

He reached the vent that was supposed to open into Dr. Connors’s lab and peered in through the grill, hoping he had come to the right place. If he jumped in on some poor guy trying to take a nap in the storage room, well, it would turn ugly _really_ quick.

Vernon detached the grill and dropped in, landing in the floor in a crouch. Thankfully, no secret sensor beams on the floor lit up when he did. He got to his feet slowly, and glanced around the room, trying to make sure it was the place he recognized from weekday work hours as Vernon the research assistant.

 _Yep, this is it,_ he thought as he took a sniff from a coffee mug that had been left half-full (positivity!) on one of the worktables. It was the same one he’d left behind earlier to be able to identify the lab in case nothing else worked. Better than hitting the lights and notifying someone standing outside that there was someone inside the lab.

In the center of the lab was the floor-to-ceiling incubation chamber that held the beginnings of The Cure’s prototype, stored in a vial at the perfect temperature and pressure conditions for safekeeping. Vernon had already run tests on his blood before, and the notes on the upgrades he wanted to make to the prototype were already in place—now all he needed to do was check if his blood was compatible with it.

He walked towards the incubation chamber that held his formula and punched in the numbers into the keypad. A small section of the structure slid aside with a hiss, making plumes of steam float outside silently, like a mini fog. Vernon carefully lifted the small vial out of its holder and closed the segment again before making his way to the table.

He rolled up the sleeve of his suit and swiped the crook of his elbow with an antiseptic-soaked swab of cotton, then picked up the hypodermic needle he’d had to buy (as Spider-Man again; he’d been running late and needed to do some shopping for May again). The needle sunk into his vein, and he watched with clinical fascination as the small transparent tube filled with dark red blood. Then, just as calmly, he tucked the cotton swab back into the inside of his elbow and rolled down his sleeve again.

Slowly, he picked up the vial and positioned the tip of the hypodermic needle over the opening. The vial was filled halfway through with a light, yellow-hued liquid of little viscosity—but if his idea worked, it wouldn’t remain that way for long. If the formula based on his genetic structure reacted to his blood sample the way it was supposed to, it would be a major jump forward in the development of Dr. Connors’s—and his father’s—idea.

It would be a little tricky explaining to Dr. Connors how Vernon came up with the idea on his own, despite being a high school student with a sky-high IQ, but that was something he had to figure out later. The sample might not even work with normal humans at this stage of development, but at least he’d know where to go from here.

Vernon took a deep breath, closing his eyes and trying to calm himself before opening them again. He curled his thumb over the plunger, and set his jaw.

 _Alright,_ he thought. _Moment of truth._

He pressed the plunger, injecting his blood into the liquid in the vial, where it spread a little slower than a drop of ink in water. The amber liquid quickly turned orange and then a dark red. Vernon swallowed, watching anxiously as it turned an even darker shade.

His heart leaped into his throat. The visual evidence said it had worked, but he still needed to be sure it hadn’t gone and gotten messed up on the molecular level. Vernon stoppered the vial and tiptoed back to the chamber, though no one was around to overhear. _Holy mother of Thor, it worked,_ he thought with an almost feverish intensity, placing the tube back into its holder and resealing the chamber. _How am I supposed to fall asleep after this?_

There was still the task of waiting for side effects, but for now the prototype was in a vegetative state and would probably remain that way for a while. And after that, who knew? It might just turn out to be an artificial saprophyte or something.

Of course, for now, it was just a tube full of protoplasmic material still in the making. Later, he would have to actually test it on himself, make sure it was effective, and then turn it into something that worked for the common man, but that was for later.

Vernon swiped the now-empty needle from the counter and leaned against the side of the counter, giving himself a moment to collect himself. His thoughts were a mess of confused elation and the overwhelming feeling of having made something that seemed so impossible actually work. He had never imagined his identity of Spider-Man would come in handy for something that was so Vernon Parker, and his thoughts were running wild in tangents and possibilities. Maybe if he managed to perfect Norman Osborn’s OZ formula…

 _Okay, none of that right now,_ he told himself firmly, though the molecules of his body still felt like they were vibrating at a higher frequency. _Gotta get home for now._

But even as he exited the ventilation system and slinked away in the dead of the dark night, his head was practically bursting at the seams with excitement over this new development. Vernon wished he could have had his father’s papers, the ones that had been destroyed in the crash, because the only stuff he had found in the attic had only made glancing mentions of The Cure.

 _But for now,_ he thought with relish, _it’s time for phase three._

* * *

Vernon had been so excited by the prospect of his new discovery that he was almost too hyped-up to swing properly.

More than once he almost collided with a stray bat, which sobered him up for no more than a few moments at a time before he was web-slinging just as wildly again. Even the city of New York seemed happy for him, because no crime took place in his path (as for the rest of the city…well. He didn’t have high hopes.), and he was back in Forest Hills just before two in the morning.

The entire neighborhood should have been asleep at this hour, but Vernon didn’t want any mishaps to take place if he tried sneaking inside his bedroom window in his suit. At least if the old lady next door saw Vernon Parker sneak inside his house at a time any good teenager should be in bed, the worst she would assume was that he was out running with some wild college kids or something. That he could handle.

He dropped into a dark service alley, not bothering to hide himself behind a dumpster because he knew no one was going to see him with that massive tree located just outside the mouth. The bare-bricked walls were depressingly plain, apart from the zigzag metal staircase of a fire escape going up one side. There was no light save for the sparse orange glow coming from a bulb somewhere inside the building, but a normal non-super would need more than that to be able to see him. All in all, it was a pretty good location for a stealth cloth-changing mission. Ten out of ten.

But just as Vernon was about to pull his mask off, he sensed a presence behind him. The long shadow cast by an unknown object to one side rippled, lengthening. Vernon tensed, ready for the person in case they tried to jump him, and whirled around to face the offender, arms stretched and web-shooters primed.

Standing just a few feet behind him in her regular jacket and combat boots, her head tilted curiously to one side, was Luce.

He almost spoke her name in his surprise, but stopped himself at the last moment, straightening. She seemed to be just as confused as him, frowning as she raised her phone and switched on the flashlight. “What are you doing here?” she asked in surprise.

“What am _I_ doing here?” he repeated indignantly, lowering his arms. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing here?” she asked. “I live here.”

“In this alley?”

She frowned again, then paused, the muscles of her face relaxing. “You know what I mean,” she muttered, then added in an undertone, “Though I practically do live here.”

“So you have no reason to be in this alley at two o’clock in the morning,” he said. Hopefully the mask would muffle his voice enough that she wouldn’t recognize it, but he still tried to modify it as much as he could. “Don’t you know it’s not safe for kids to roam places like this at odd hours of the night?”

“Then why are _you_ here?” she fired back.

He shook his head. “I’m this city’s own friendly neighborhood Spider-Man,” he said. “Being out in weird places at weird hours is kind of in the job description.”

She narrowed her eyes. Vernon blinked rapidly under the mask.

“So you _are_ a kid,” she said.

“Did I say that?” he asked immediately, cocking his head. “You have to go home.”

“No,” she said. “Not until I find my cat.”

“Your—” He cut himself off, exhaling through his teeth. He knew better than to argue with Luce. They had known each other since they were both four, but there were still times when the kinds of things she got up to confused even him. Of fucking _course_ it was about the cat. “Why are you looking for your cat in an alley?”

“Because this is where he likes to come,” she replied, glancing around her after she spoke, as if saying that had reminded her she was supposed to be looking for the cat. “I lost track of him a couple of days ago. Usually, he’s back within three days or so, but he didn’t come back this time, so I decided to check it out.”

“At this time?”

She shrugged, not answering. As Vernon he could have pressed her, but as Spider-Man, that kind of familiarity was abnormal.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What’s your cat’s name?” he asked, even though he already knew.

A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. “Hairball.”

“Hairball the cat?” he asked. “Does he answer to that name?”

“Not really,” she admitted, her smile widening. “I actually found him in this alley a couple of years ago, and kind of adopted him. Saying he’s _mine_ is a human term, and he doesn’t really believe in that.”

Vernon was feeling so many things at once it was hard to know which one was affecting him the most. There was the exhaustion that had begun to set in once the adrenaline had faded (it was two in the morning, after all), the surprise at seeing Luce out wandering in the street like a wild child at an hour like this, and the overwhelming fond amusement that grew bit by bit the more the conversation progressed.

“Alright,” he relented. “I’ll find your cat.”

He could tell she’d worked especially hard to keep her face neutral, but her eyes lit up. “You will?”

“Correction: I’ll help you _look_ for your cat,” he said. “If Hairball doesn’t want to be found, I don’t think even Thor would be able to find him.”

“True that,” she said, her face radiant despite the cool expression.

He smiled under the mask, low-key thankful that she couldn’t see it. “Hairball!” he whisper-yelled, walking further into the alley with Luce following close behind. “Here, kitty!”

Behind him, Luce snorted. “He hates that.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know?” he asked. “Hairball!” he called again, then winced. “God, I feel so ridiculous saying that. Couldn’t you name him something sensible, like Niels or something?”

“It was hard enough getting him to respond to Hairball, and it’s too late now,” she said, shining the phone’s flashlight into a dark corner. “Damn.”

They looked everywhere, navigating the alleyway at a slow pace. It was so dark that Vernon could barely see beyond the reach of the flashlight, and though he had changed in all kinds of alleys before, they were still not on his okayed list. They smelled like crap.

“How long have you been looking for him?” He asked as he stepped over a few crushed cans, kicking them out of the way. The people around here were usually neat, but trash bags were often bursting at the seams from the average household’s garbage output. He accidentally stepped into a puddle of unidentifiable dark liquid, and made a face.

“Only about twenty minutes,” she said. “I started from my house and looked for him on the way here, so I haven’t been here long.”

“Good. So he can still be here.” He kicked at a trashcan whose lid stood propped up against the wall. It mewled.

Luce and Vernon looked at each other. Then Luce handed him the flashlight and moved towards the trashcan, leaning over it with her hands against her knees. “Hairball,” she spoke into the trashcan like it was an oversized tin can telephone. “I know you’re in there.”

The trashcan shook, a rattling noise coming from inside it like a small animal was scampering around. Vernon thought about his previous encounters with skunks and glanced at Luce uneasily. “Uh…I don’t think you should—"

The trashcan shook again, more violently this time, before finally toppling over. Vernon jumped out of its way, thankful that the mask hid his expression. He couldn’t have her thinking he was a sissy, as Vernon Parker or as Spider-Man—actually, scratch that. She already knew Vernon Parker was a sissy.

A small ginger cat poked its head out of the can, and meowed. It was grimy, scraggly-looking, and had half an ear missing, but Luce cooed in delight, scooping it up into her arms. To Vernon’s surprise, Hairball didn’t protest.

“Oh, kitto, you shouldn’t run away for so long,” she said to the cat. Vernon took a step back, wary of how bad it smelled, equally wary of Luce for having picked up a cat that had literally just escaped from a trashcan. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Kitto?” Vernon echoed, amused.

She didn’t even look up from stroking Hairball. “He’s my cat. I can call him whatever I want.”

“I thought he wasn’t technically _your_ cat, only so in human terms?”

She glanced up, gaze quick and sharp. “Nicely played,” she said. Hairball purred contentedly in her arms, and she smiled.

It was a sweet smile, almost uncharacteristic, soft and fond and all kinds of gentle. Luce laughed a lot, but her smiles were rare to come by, so it was nice to see one of those again, even if it wasn’t directed at him.

“What?” she asked, jarring him out of his thoughts.

“Nothing,” he muttered. Next in line were the quip followed by him taking his leave, but for some reason, his body refused to move. “You have a beautiful smile.”

She looked at him then, the smile easing into a soft curve of a mouth. “I’d say the same to you,” she said, “but I can’t actually see your face.”

He grinned. “I’m smiling right now under the mask.”

“Can I see?” she asked.

“Nope,” he said, almost regretfully.

“Not even a little bit?”

“Sorry. It’s the superhero code.” He shrugged. “But I’m still smiling.”

She beamed again. “Well, it’s a beautiful smile.”


	15. Web

With a loud _thump,_ one of the other assistants in Dr. Connors's lab, a first-year at ESU named Julie, set down a heavy pile of boxes on Vernon's table. Plumes of powdery material floated into the air from the force of the impact, indicating that the boxes had been collecting dust for quite some time, but it still didn't tell Vernon what they were supposed to be or what they were doing here.

He looked up, raising his eyebrows at the girl, but she only shrugged, and stepped aside to reveal the scientist himself standing behind her, smiling widely at him.

Vernon blanched, slipping his textbooks off the table as sneakily as he could without him seeing. After missing three different lectures in a week, he was way behind his study schedule, and had taken the short respite from his job to at least glance through the material he had missed before. 

He was used to covering the term's syllabus before time and his near-perfect grades usually helped him stay out of trouble with his teachers, but an emergency had cropped up during the chem lab tutorial and now he had no idea what he had missed. He _could_ have relied on his old lab partner to help out, but now that the lab partner in question was Yangyang, he was more than a little worried. Maybe he'd just ask Yeji to help out instead.

But right now, in an environment that was not school, Vernon had bigger priorities. He'd already been late to work, and the last thing he needed right now was Dr. Connors discovering he had been trying to get in some revision for midterms when he was supposed to be entering the table of observations into the log.

Dr. Connors chuckled as Julie walked away, looking down at Vernon warmly. "You don't need to hide those from me, Vernon," he said. "I know I've been asking you to do too much, and all of it is way above the paygrade of a regular research assistant. The least I could do is let you use your time to study. Besides, it's only going to help my own research in the end."

Vernon smiled a little, rubbing the back of his neck. He didn't really care about the money—just getting to work on his dad's old work was enough, even worth more to him than any number of dollar bills he could have gotten from it.

He eyed the boxes, leaning backwards slightly to prevent the blatant mothball scent from invading his senses. "Uh...what's this?" he asked.

Dr. Connors thumped the top box with his hand, making even more dust fly into the air. Vernon coughed, his eyes watering slightly. The lack of sleep had made his nose even more sensitive. "This," the scientist said with a fond, proud glint in his eye, "is all your father's notes on The Cure."

Vernon looked sharply up at the man, stunned into silence. "You mean..." He looked at the boxes again, this time with a much different expression. "You had it all preserved?"

"And much more." The scientist nodded. "There's more in my office and at my house, tapes and recordings of his other experiments, the numerous logs he updated every time he discovered something new. He was a very meticulous man, your father." One again, he got this nostalgic, achingly sad look in his eye that shone through at almost every mention of Vernon's dad.

Vernon looked back at the box, carefully lifting one of them off the tower of boxes and placing it on his desk. A strange series of tingles spread from his fingertips and travelled through the rest of his body, like the sharp pain you felt from touching a hot stove, except this wasn't painful. Slowly, he lifted the lid of the shoebox, and looked in at the piles of paper neatly arranged inside it. The smell of mothballs was even stronger inside, but now it was nothing compared to his eagerness to see everything.

There were files and dog-eared books from old researchers, notebooks with yellowed pages and so much more. His hands trembling slightly, Vernon touched the top of one, running his fingertips over the crackling paper. They looked like they had been well-maintained despite the condition of the box they'd been in. The files were all in order and the loose papers had been clipped together carefully, the old sheets thankfully uneaten by moths.

"I still have the others in my possession, but I couldn't tow all of them to the lab," Dr. Connors said. The muscles of his face were taut, eyes darting between the pages and Vernon's face. If he didn't know better, Vernon could almost have believed he was nervous. "You're welcome to come over anytime you like, to take them. I should have given them to you before—the tapes, at least, if not the papers—but the content of those tapes...I didn't know if you would be ready to face it." He pursed his lips into a smile, but it was dimmer than the one before. "You certainly are now."

Vernon looked up at him, opening his mouth to speak, express his overwhelming gratitude somehow, but nothing came. Instead, he looked back down, unconsciously holding a breath in his lungs, and chose to go for the simplest option. "Thank you," he said, voice thick with choking emotion.

The man placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it warmly. "It's yours now," he said. "As it should have been a long time ago."

Vernon placed the lid over the box again, and exhaled slowly as his thoughts came back to reality. Seeing his dad's neat, sloping handwriting all over the pages had made him feel like he was in a dream, but this was real. All of this—it wasn't _just_ his dad's handwriting. It was his life's work. And Vernon had to see it through till the end.

"I'll compare the material's structure to my dad's notes when I get back home, see if it's going in the right direction," Vernon said without looking up. The words felt clumsy and formal in his mouth.

A pause. "I took a look at your sample yesterday."

_Oh, crap._

The boy laughed nervously, scratching behind his ear and avoiding Dr. Connors's eyes. "Oh, that?" he asked in a high-pitched voice. He cleared his throat. "That's just...a trial-and-error thing. A pretty stupid idea, actually, I should probably take the sample back so I can dispose of—"

"A stupid idea? Vernon, it's genius!" Dr. Connors exclaimed. "I don't know how you got your hands on Oscorp's OZ prototype, but binding it with the lizard serum, using arachnid DNA? I could never even have _thought_ of using an invertebrate." He grinned widely. "Where did you get the idea?"

"Um. You know," Vernon mumbled, thoughts clawing desperately for a good excuse. "...Spider-Man?"

The scientist threw his head back and laughed. "Incredible!" He shook his head, still smiling. "I should have known that's what you were thinking of when you suggested the enhanced human cell structure."

Vernon smiled what he hoped looked like a bashful smile. "It's still just a prototype," he said. "If I had, like, Spider-Man's actual blood, it could have been much better, but right now I just mimicked what you tried to do with the lizard serum."

"Clever, very clever," Dr. Connors said warmly. "And what are you, sixteen?"

"Seventeen, actually." Vernon paused. "Well, almost."

"Do you realize how incredible that is?" he asked. "If you could make it work, you would be one of the youngest patented inventors in history."

"Patented?" Vernon echoed. "Uh, Dr. Connors, I don't think—"

"Don't worry about the technicalities," the man said. "I'll handle those."

"No, it's—not about that," Vernon muttered. "That sample is nowhere close to perfection. We'll still have to wait a long time to check for side effects, compatibility, removal—" He parted his lips, curling his fingers in and out nervously. "With the basis for its structure in the current state, it...it could be dangerous."

A conflicted look flickered over Dr. Connors's face, but it was gone as soon as it had come. "Oh, no, Vernon, don't think like that," he said, warmly but firmly. "We already have most of the structure down. It shouldn't be long before we can put it to use."

Vernon's blood ran cold. _Not again._ "Doctor, I think y—we should really think this through," he said, keeping his tone calm. "Premature human trials ruined the success of your lizard formula...this shouldn't suffer the same fate, too."

Dr. Connors's shoulders tensed. "You're right," he muttered at length, face growing grave. "It's too important." He turned his face away, but Vernon could still see his furrowed brow, the lines around his mouth and eyes deepening. "I can't let that happen again—at any cost."

 _At any cost? What cost?_ "Dr. Connors—"

"Don't worry, Vernon, your serum will remain safe," he said. "I won't let anything happen to it."

Vernon didn't reply, squinting slightly at thelook on the scientist's face. Despite the man's reassuring words, dread pooledin the pit of his stomach, an old instinct just as powerful as the spidersense—the feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong.

* * *

When the automated doors to the bunker opened, a red haze had already begun to set upon his vision.

He descended the steps into the underground, the light of the evening dying above him with every step on the staircase. The lights were all off, but he knew each and every step, able to navigate them as easily as his own home in the dead of the night. But _this_ was his home now.

The pitch blackness sometimes helped keep the visions at bay, so he preferred to leave the lights out whenever he was alone in the bunker. In the dark, there were no colors, no blue or brown. No red, not even the thin film of it that always took over his sight when his eyes began to burn.

He used to think it was because he was seeing through his own blood—literally. In the beginning, when there were no memories and no experience and his eyeballs would start heating up, he would think something in his blood had set them on fire. That his flesh was boiling, charring, burning away his tendons and veins and letting the blood ooze out of his skin and into his eyes, covering everything he looked at with a veil of blood. Blood, and fire, and the world of senses dissolving into one of pain.

He had gotten better at controlling it, especially out in the open, but sometimes it acted out when he had a visitor. It was frightening, at first, blacking out from the heat and waking up on the floor with blood on his hands, but it got easier after a while. Practice, and forced calm, and he could see even through a river of blood.

The lights came on when he walked into the center of the lab, green, blinding. He cringed away from the green-tinted glare—green, red?—and stalked towards the end of the corridor, in the direction of the switchboard. Green seemed to taunt him from all around him, the test tubes, the machinery, the smooth white surface of the tables. All bathed in green. No, not green. Red.

He shut off the lights, but his eyes had begun to burn so bad it felt like they were going to melt out of his sockets. His eyesight was blurry now, red in the dark, his hands and his nails and the new lines sunken into his skin. The blurs moved, but instead of collapsing into hot tears, they blurred together, coalescing into tiny white figures like ghosts in his pocket. On the tubes and tables and needles, on his hands.

 _Green,_ one of the plasmids said.

 _Red,_ said another.

 _Yellow,_ he thought, as if he were capable of thinking. He tried to take another step, but it was like walking through quicksand. The ground seemed to pull at his feet, slowing his steps, until he was straining to move his legs. Finally, unable to pull himself up against the weight of him, he collapsed at the side of the table, sliding down against the spotless white—red—of the side, the plasmids climbing all over him like children in a playground.

 _Traffic lights, traffic,_ one of them whispered. Their words were overlapped and unsynchronized, creating a cacophony of sound. _GCT,_ one said. _Buildings,_ said another.

_Falling. Jumping. Heights._

_Fire. Devil's eyes._

_Bedtime stories. Demons. Fairies. Elves._

He clawed at the leg of a display table, but accidentally ended up knocking it over. His hands splayed out on the cool floor, but it was becoming colder by the second, turning into ice like he had thrust his hand through the icy surface of the Hudson in winter. _Ice skating, rinks, cold hands._ He grappled, scrabbled, scraped, but there was nothing to hold on to. It was all falling away from him—or maybe he was the one falling away from it all.

The cold was unbearable, so he curled into himself, letting the fire fall from his eyes like tears and wash over his body in a blanket of red. His muscles stretched and tore. _Anaerobic respiration._ The skin of his back a lick of a whip, as hot as molten metal from the smeltery. _He sucked the air out of your lungs, he filled them with fire._

The plasmids were upon him now, even as his grip on his elbows loosened. He felt nothing as one of them sneaked over his shoulder, glided up to his jaw, and whispered, _the middle of town._

 _Infection of the blood-brain barrier,_ said another. Urgent, but all the tones collapsed into one train of monotony in his head. Nothing heard. _Inflammation of the meninges._

_Traffic lights, green, red, yellow. Cars, headlights, concrete._

_Allografts,_ crooned the fifth, or the seventy-second. _Sympathetic ganglia. All damaged._

_Gene-level, process-level, network-level—_

_You were never really around._

The fire receded, but his eyes still burned, as did his mouth. He had bitten through his tongue; it felt big and swollen in his mouth, the blood dripping onto the red-glazed floor and congealing into tiny pools of darkness.

_You didn't need me to be around._

There were too many of them now, crawling all over him like ants on a dead moth. The words crawled over him, too, pouring into his eyes and his mouth and his ears, creating a noise that echoed around inside his head and creating the effect of nails on a chalkboard.

 _Mutation bias. Failed._ His fingers twitched. _Failed, failed, failed. Success._

He opened his eyes slowly, a herculean effort. The room still swam in his vision, but his other senses were settling in now, like sand at the bottom of a glass of water. He could feel the floor's hardness against his jaw now, its coolness against his palms.

_That's not true._

_Proteostasis. Regulation failed._

_I needed you, and you weren't there._

_Failed, failed, failed._

_I did everything for you._

_Failed. Failed. Failed._

_BUT YOU WEREN'T THERE!_

His fingers closed around air. The muscles of his legs twitched, and he rammed his knee into a stand, toppling the half-constructed suit on top.

_FAILED._

No, not air. He raised his head, slowly, and blearily peered at the thin silver strands caught between his fingers. Spiderwebs, even in an underground bunker out here in the middle of nowhere.

 _Spider._ Now the voices seemed to calm somewhat, distorting together into one, the word reverberating like spoken by an entire crowd at once. Like a chant. _Itsy bitsy Spider-Man._

He closed his hand around the strings, making them break apart. _Spider-Man?_ the plasmids chorused, and his tongue didn't feel so heavy in his mouth. _Spider-Man,_ they said. All coming together, only one voice in his head.

_Kill Spider-Man._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last prewritten chapter...let's see how long it takes me to update from now on :')


	16. Partner Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> probably my favorite chapter so far. i love yangyang.

Vernon raised the test tube to eye level, watching the clear liquid inside slowly turn a pink-tinted shade as he did. It was a beautiful color, made even prettier by the rays of sunlight coming in through the window and filtering through the fluid, turning it a rosen gold.

"Perfect," Yeji said. She was standing at her own table, but had leaned over to keep an eye on how Vernon's experiment was going, since she—and an explanation of the experiment's procedure in bullet points that Vernon had glanced through just moments before class—were the only things keeping him afloat in the lab. "Now add the dilute sulfuric acid."

"Uh-huh," he mumbled, placing the test tube back in its cubbyhole. There were only about fifteen minutes left till the end of the period, and three more steps left till that of the experiment, so he was pretty confident about getting it done on time. _I didn't really need to panic._ "Yangyang, pass over the sulfuric acid."

No one answered.

Vernon glanced up with a scowl, irritated by having his rhythm interrupted by his negligent new partner. Yangyang was leaning across the table, propped up on his elbows, holding a whispered conversation with Luce, who was somehow managing to keep her own experiment going with Flash, although the latter was probably even worse than Yangyang. As Vernon watched, Yangyang said something with a grin, making Luce laugh out loud. Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth, glancing over at the lab instructor who thankfully didn't seem to have noticed.

The scene was so close to the one he'd walked in to in the cafeteria on his first proper introduction to the team that the influx of irritation Vernon felt was practically a practiced reaction. His eyes narrowed slowly, fingers clenching around the test tube holder so tightly that the metal bent slightly in his grip.

"Yangyang," he said through his teeth, fighting to control the volume of his voice. "Hand. Over. The. Sulfuric. Acid."

"Huh?" Yangyang looked back at him, moving nothing but his head. Vernon glared at him, paying no attention to the questioning look Luce threw at him.

"Weren't you in class during the tutorial last time?" he snapped at the boy. "I swear to god, if you don't listen to simple instructions and spend your time trying to talk to _my_ friends, I'll turn you in to the instructor. After all the times your grades have tanked in class, I'm sure Agent Principal Coulson will be glad to demote you—in class, and maybe in the team." He gave him a sickly-sweet smile, but his eyes were daggers. "Where was I? Ah, yes, the sulfuric acid."

High color had appeared in blotches on Yangyang's cheeks, but the boy didn't say anything. He scowled at Vernon so hard his face looked like someone had squished his features together, and turned, stalking off to get the acid. Vernon took a deep breath and closed his eyes, counting to four and back before he trusted himself to open them.

"God, I wish he'd been partnered with someone like Flash instead," he muttered to Yeji, who had been watching the scene unfold with catlike amusement. "Then they'd annoy each other so much it would develop their character."

"Yangyang's not so bad," Yeji said in his defense, though she didn't sound like she cared much about what she was saying. "The patience needed for a careful experiment, with all its waiting, is just not for him."

"It's not like I'm asking him to do anything big," Vernon said, carding back the hair that had fallen into his eyes before pushing his goggles up to hold it back. "Just hand me stuff, like that assistant guy in Frankenstein."

"There was an assistant guy in Frankenstein?"

"Actually, I don't remember," Vernon admitted. "The only time I went through that book was for summer reading two years ago."

Yeji laughed quietly as Yangyang came back, carrying a conical flask in his gloved hand. He handed it to Vernon with the definitive scowl of someone who wasn't going to forget the insult he had faced anytime soon, but on him it just looked childish. Vernon smirked as he took the flask from him, and positioned himself in front of the table.

"Now," he said to Yangyang, like a teacher explaining the inner workings of a particularly complicated mechanism, "watch carefully."

"This is boring," Yangyang mumbled as Vernon lifted the test tube with the initial solution again, but watched as the flask was brought close to the lip of the tube. "Actually—Vernon, I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Go ahead," Vernon muttered, not really paying attention. _Oh, wait, almost forgot,_ he thought, placing the flask back down and reaching up to pull his goggles back into place.

"You know what you were saying about those guys like Rhino and Shocker being sent after you by the Goblin?" Yangyang asked. "Well, I was thinking—"

"One second," Vernon interrupted, cutting him off. He leaned over to Yeji's table, and asked, "How much of that do we have to add?"

"About twenty milliliters," she answered.

Vernon nodded, and leaned back. Yangyang was scowling at him again. "Will you _listen_ to me for one moment?" he snapped.

Vernon lowered the tube, and turned to glare at his partner. "Can't you do this later?" he asked, annoyed. "In case you hadn't noticed, we're in the middle of an extremely important experiment here."

"It's not even that important!" Yangyang protested. "But I have to tell you—"

"Save it for later," Vernon said, facing the setup again, more resolutely this time. "I'm sure whatever it is can wait."

"But—"

"Give it up, Yangyang," he muttered, raising the flask, and started to pour the colorless acid into the test tube, all the while keeping an eye on the reading of the scale on the side of the glass. He wanted peace and quiet while he was doing something important, like snagging that perfect practical score.

As he set the test tube back inside the holder, the surface began to steam, then froth. Yangyang leaned close, probably to give him a piece of his mind, and Vernon's spider sense tingled.

He reacted just in time. As Vernon grabbed Yangyang and pulled him to the floor, the solution blew up, exploding in all directions like a shower of sparks. The room gasped collectively, and someone dropped another test tube, which smashed against the floor in pieces. The instructor, who had fallen asleep in his chair, was given a rude awakening when the chair toppled over backwards, sending him crashing to the ground.

A few seconds later, the smoke alarm went off, followed by water from the sprinkler that drizzled over them, wetting the shoulders of his lab coat. Vernon coughed, his eyes watering from the vile stench, and waited for a few seconds for the smoke to subside before getting up, grabbing Yangyang's collar and pulling him up with him.

"What the heck did you bring in that flask?" he yelled at the boy, who had paled quite a bit. The rest of the class watched them in silence, some shocked, some enjoying the scene.

"I told you! Sulfuric acid!" Yangyang cried. Vernon made a sound of disgust and let go of him, turning back to the table. His hair had been wettened by the sprinkler and now hung over his eyes in a matted mess. He ripped off his goggles and ran a hand through his hair, hunting around the table for the conical flask. In seconds, he found it and picked it up, squinting at the label through the droplets that had caught in his eyelashes and were now rolling off them like tears.

 _Concentrated Sulfuric Acid,_ the label said.

"Oh, great. Just great," Vernon muttered miserably to himself, before whirling on Yangyang again. "We needed _dilute_ sulfuric acid, you absolute twat!"

"How was _I_ supposed to know that?" Yangyang fired back. A scowl painted his dripping face. "And your _face_ is an absolute twat."

Vernon shook his head at him, all the adrenaline the anger had given him draining from his body. "I guess I should have seen that coming," he muttered.

"Liu! Parker!" an angry voice yelled, and they both turned to look at the angry lab instructor who stood behind them, sopping wet. His nose eyebrows were pinched into a thunderous scowl, and his face had reddened so much he looked like he was about to explode. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Uh..." Yangyang smiled sheepishly. "It was an accident?"

"An accident!" the instructor yelled, so hard that spittle flew from his mouth. "Were the instructions in class not clear enough?" he asked. "I leave you kids alone for _one moment..._ " He spotted the flask in Vernon's hands, and snatched it away. "Give me that! You're not supposed to be using that until December!"

"Sorry, Mr. Kirby," Vernon mumbled.

"Sorry doesn't cut it," Mr. Kirby said. "I expect both of you in detention today after school, afteryou clean up this mess you've created!"

 _"Detention?"_ Vernon gaped. They had training today, right after classes were over. "But, sir, I have to get to work—"

"You should have thought of that _before_ you decided to be careless with dangerous chemicals," the teacher said. "Perhaps this'll teach you a much-needed lesson in lab safety. I have to say, I did not expect this kind of recklessness from you, Mr. Parker."

Vernon hung his head, face burning. "I'm sorry, sir," he mumbled. "It won't happen again."

"It better not." He shook his head. "Now, get cleaning! You don't have all day."

"Sucks," Yangyang commented as the teacher left. Vernon gave him a venomous look, and his expression turned indignant. "What?"

"Never mind," Vernon muttered. Now, unless he was lucky enough to get a redo, he was going to lose his grade streak, and another teacher who used to love him thought he was careless. _Can it really get any worse than this?_

"Don't worry about missing training because of detention," Yangyang said, pulling off his lab coat. "The two of us will get a make-up session together later."

_Looks like it just got worse._

* * *

Vernon sat on the edge of the roof of a dull gray building, his legs dangling over the side and a still-warm, half-eaten slice of pizza in his hand. He had finally called on the favor from Paulo the pizza delivery guy, and luckily so, because Eddie's pizza was some of the best he'd had in ages—maybe even better than Larry's, which was a childhood favorite. The pizza box containing the rest of the delicacy rested on the ledge next to him, and on the other side of it, quiet without being told to be so for the first time in his life, sat Nova.

Vernon had ended up sharing an especially late patrol with Nova after their training session tardy, and the web-slinger had _not_ enjoyed it. Even though it had been a productive day (night?) he still felt dissatisfied and restless, and he knew it was because of his ultimately unfinished chem lab experiment.

Kind of sad for a superhero, if you really thought about it.

"Busy day, huh?" Nova spoke around his mouthful of pepperoni, so it sounded more like _beefy hay._ Vernon sighed quietly to himself. He should have known the amazing silence wasn't going to last for long.

"Night," he corrected unnecessarily, but Yangyang didn't mock him for it. They had stopped a drug deal from taking place and apprehended six different cronies of some local gang, which racked up Vernon's criminal count to about sixty-two, placing him at the top of the team leaderboard. It was a very professional affair. They had a chalkboard in their assigned training room and everything.

"Fun, though."

"Of course," Vernon said sarcastically. "The most fun I've ever had since I went to my cousin's bar mitzvah three years ago."

Yangyang looked at him for an uncomprehending three seconds before raising his sleeved arm and pointing at him. "That was sarcasm," he said. "I noticed that."

"My hearty congratulations."

Yangyang's lower lip jutted as he looked at Vernon, as if he was about to say something. Ultimately, he turned away, facing the cityscape spread out in front of them again. "I know you're mad at me for the chemistry lab thing," he said in a muted voice.

"Did you pay someone to notice that for you?" Vernon asked half-heartedly. Really, his mind was somewhere else, but he couldn't help saying it. He _was_ still mad at Yangyang for the fiasco that had taken place in the lab, but the boy looked so downtrodden because of it that it had become impossible for him to hold that grudge. On top of it, he had stayed as less annoying as possible for the entirety of the patrol, which made Vernon think he really did regret it.

And he knew that with Yangyang, a direct apology was pretty much out of the question.

"I'm sorry."

Vernon almost fell over when he heard the words come from Yangyang's mouth. The boy still had his gaze fixed stubbornly at some point in the distance, but the corners of his mouth were turned down unhappily. "I know your grades are really important to you, and I should've paid more attention in class for my own grade, too," Yangyang continued. "So yeah, I'm sorry."

Vernon blinked at him, unsure of what to say. The pizza slice had gone cold in his hand, so he took another bite from it, chewing slowly and meticulously so it wouldn't make a noise and make the break of silence in the conversation awkward.

"It's okay," he said lamely. What was _up_ with him today? Generally, Spider-Man rocked pep talks and morality sermons. "As long as you don't do it again."

Yangyang hesitated, then took off his helmet, resting it on the ledge beside him. They were up high enough that no one but the pigeons could see them as much more than points in the distance. His hair was slightly mussed from the helmet, but he didn't make any move to fix it. "You know what I was going to tell you about that Shocker thing in lab?"

"When I was trying to focus on the experiment and got annoyed enough to miss the prefix on the label, thus causing the mini explosion?" Vernon asked. Yangyang looked at him with rounded eyes, and he pursed his lips. "Sorry, it kind of just slipped out."

Yangyang turned back towards the city. "What I was going to say was that I noticed something off about both the Rhino attack, and the Shocker one," he said. "You remember how neither of them attacked you?"

"Uh, I remember them attacking me very vividly, yeah."

"No, I mean in the _beginning,"_ he said. "You found Rhino because he was trashing 108th street, and Shocker because Coulson told us he was out on some kind of rampage."

Vernon frowned. "I'm with you so far," he said. "But I don't see where this is going."

Yangyang raised his palms patiently, like _wait._ "So neither of them had access to your location or anything, and they weren't doing anything with a personal motive, but they did attack you when you swung in," he said. "And they seemed like they expected you to come."

Vernon raised an eyebrow. "Not to toot my own horn or anything, but most criminals expect me to come when they're committing a crime."

"Not like that," Yangyang muttered impatiently. "Didn't you notice how they kind of ignored the rest of us?"

"Maybe because you're new and they didn't want to be rude?"

"C'mon, web-head." Yangyang groaned. "Both Rhino and Shocker didn't hit you hard enough."

Vernon unconsciously touched his chest, where Rhino had smacked his suited fist into him and sent him flying. "I think they hit me pretty hard."

"Not enough to _really_ harm you, though," the boy said sagely. "You didn't have any broken bones or any long-term injuries after the Rhino fight, did you? None of us did. And that guy has a metal horn on his head."

Vernon scratched the side of his neck, still unsure about the whole thing. "Maybe," he admitted, "but it still sounds like a stretch, Yangyang. It was just two people. Could have just been chance."

Yangyang made a frustrated noise at the back of his throat. "Don't you _see?"_ he asked. "It's not just two people! Most of these guys we fight in our low threat level operations, all those petty crook types, they follow the _exact_ same pattern." He looked at Vernon insistently. "And you know where they all go? To Ryker's."

For a few, long moments, Vernon stared at him, waiting for the implication in his words to click. It didn't. "I have literally no idea what you're saying."

Yangyang glared at him for a few seconds, then sighed. "I didn't know what I expected," he muttered. "Have you ever even read the official S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook?"

"There's an official S.H.I.E.L.D. handbook?" If so, Vernon was surprised _Yangyang_ had read it.

"Of course," Yangyang said superiorly. "It has this section dedicated to picking out patterns during fieldwork and—never mind that. What I'm saying is that all these guys are pulling their punches and getting arrested, and they're all going to one destination ultimately, and it's Ryker's." He looked Vernon dead in the eyes. "And that's where Green Goblin is."

Vernon managed to control himself for a grand total of three seconds before he burst out laughing, the force of it almost knocking him off his perch. "Oh, god, that has to be the funniest conspiracy theory I've ever heard in my life," he said between bursts of laughter. "Yangyang, the Goblin isn't even _in_ the main building of Ryker's prison. He's in the Raft."

"Yeah, but evil finds a way," Yangyang said seriously.

Vernon laughed again. "You are _incredible,"_ he said, grinning. "Rhino's being held in the Helicarrier's special cells, Shocker's in Ryker's, and the Goblin is kept under constant surveillance in the most secure building in the more secure prison island in the city," he said. "See? It's even a prison _island."_

"A prison island with the Green Goblin and the most dangerous criminals kept inside it," Yangyang said stubbornly. "And it won't just be them for long—when the science guys are done with him, even Rhino's going to be moved to the Raft eventually."

Vernon looked at Yangyang, giving him an almost fond smile not unlike one an older brother would sometimes give his younger, more immature sibling. "Sure," he said. "But there's the problem of communication, constant surveillance, and about a hundred S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and police officers marching him to Ryker's when that time of the year rolls around."

"You're not taking me seriously," Yangyang said insistently, and Vernon pursed his lips, because he wasn't wrong. "I mean it, Vernon! In our line of work, there's no such thing as coincidences."

The brunet sighed, realizing there was no way to convince Yangyang that even if that statement was true, the possibility that his theory was too was about one in a million. Math said so. "Alright," he said, suddenly tired. The pizza slice had gone completely cold in his hand, but he didn't really care that much. His appetite seemed to have disappeared. "I'll ask Coulson to slip me a note or something. But if he gets annoyed, I'm totally pinning the blame on you."

"It doesn't matter if he gets worried, as long as he gets the job done," Yangyang said, taking another large bite of the pizza. "Mm, this is _so_ good."

"Yeah?" Vernon mumbled, stuffing the rest of his slice into his mouth and rolling down the mask over his face again. "Take the rest of it if you want. It's already late, and I'm not that hungry. I need to get home in ten minutes."

"And I need to get back to the Helicarrier in—oh, about half an hour ago." Yangyang shrugged carelessly. "Some rules are meant to be broken."

"Fury's anger and Aunt May's anger are on two different levels, Yangyang," Vernon said, pushing himself up to stand on the ledge, preparing himself for the jump. "Spider-Man can't afford to get grounded for the rest of his life."

He jumped, then swung away, not looking back once.


End file.
